[The relevance of the poem: In the pre-independence/ early days of independence, there were few villages with no ponds, but with number of wells that catered to the drinking and irrigation needs of people. But, people in power and their stooges, of late, are going on a usurping spree appropriating village lands under tanks and pastures literally undoing what we read in history by great kings who cared for the well-being of people. Coupled with that, in urban areas, selling water by digging borewells has become a monopolistic trade of Municipal Councillors / Ward members. With all the canals and estuaries that feed these tanks and ponds occupied, and the area under the tanks and ponds shrinking with reckless occupations, it will be no wonder if tomorrow people depend on rains only for their primary needs. Bathing in a pond would literally become a dream for the urban and rural kids.]
.
Like a motherless orphan
Our village was pondless
I don’t have any wet childhood memories
Of going bonkers over kissing the cheeks of a pond;
Or, any strong impressions of
Running naked across its watery plains;
Or, the childy experiences of nestling
Like a tender fruit among the rippling leaves
Rising up the hydel tree.
How dearly had we dreamt
Of learning alphabet in our juvenility
Writing on the watery slate over and over!
Whenever we saw a procession of clouds
We joined our voice with thunders
Raising slogans for the rain.
Stretching our earthy tongues
To trap the first drops of rain
And smacking them like lollipops
was the only aqueous dream we had of a pond.
When in the fiery season the skies rained heat
We ran everywhere like refugees with blistered feet
In search of a pond,
In search of a spring.
For the dried up and breached lives of ours
We couldn’t find a mouthful of water to gulp.
Like the hollow eye-sockets of our old boy Gurayyatata
There were two ground-wells
Which always presented a gloomy look.
Raising our hands up to the sky
We prayed to bless us with a pond,
Protested angrily for water like Bhageeratha,
And even wanted to break the pots of clouds
Shooting arrows into the sky.
Such was the innocence of our childhood
As to believe that it would rain
If we prayed for water, tying frogs to a mortar.
On the few occasions that it had rained,
Our village celebrated a festival of water.
But, by the next morning, when water receded,
It showed up cracks in the resident mire.
But I remember,
One hurricane night, when
Our village had turned
Into a veritable pool of water
With huts submerged neck-deep
And we, floating in its cradle for survival
Wailing our tears out.
We became tortoises in that flood,
Became moony Carps,
And Korameenus.
And as the water receded gradually
Like a pond drying up.
We fell silent
Like when milk dried up with the mother.
Whenever I remember my village, and
The childhood memories are caressed on my back,
Whenever the dry plot of land
Of my ancestors flashed in my memory,
The pondless profile of my village
Appears before my eyes, sapping all my energy.
With its resonating earthly voice
It exhorts me to become a pond myself.
.
Dr. Yendluri Sudhakar
Dr. Sudhakar is a Professor of Telugu at the Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University, Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh.
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