.
Well, this earth may not be ours
But how can our body be not ours?
The corpse consigned to flames
May not dry get angry or dry your tears
But how can the friendships twined for years disappear
Or the lessons assiduously taught till yesterday?
How can the rest of the story
Page-marked after reading half cease?
Is it meet to cremate the body alienating it
From a person with such vigour vitality and can resurrect?
Is the edict of Time so merciless and inhuman?
Even a fisherman shall not burn his boat crossing a stream
But shall ready it for the following day’s stint.
Doesn’t this body worth as much?
Perhaps, it is better to declare the rights
Over the inert body to our intimate people
As casually as you serve a glass of pudding.
True! Whether it strikes at the desired hour, or without warning
Death surrounds the same seething gloom and infirmity.
And it is but natural for the religion and its bigotry,
Stilled while alive, to bare its fangs with vengeance.
How many bods shall have to be paid in tribute?
Either for not speaking out all that should have been,
Or, for ignoring all that has been spoken out,
Poor me, people as delicate as jasmines are consigned to flames!
OMG! Cotton in the nostrils, camphor on the eyes,
Fetters to the toes and logs on the bosom…
Divesting the person of all modesty
Making up the way one would never want to be seen
Undermining individual’s dignity on all fronts.
What a pity! Even the staunchest existentialist
Has to endure this lifelessness like the rotten society.
Body, in fact, is a wonderful democratic institution.
Watch! It will not desert you abruptly like a dictator.
Heart continues to function even after brain dies and lapses into coma
Kidneys and Liver removed within hours of
Heart ceasing functioning resume their work normally.
For six hours after the cessation of all sensation
In the womb of the eye the pupils still trill.
Like, while vacating a house,
We deracinate a sapling from the bed of a plant
We so covetously nurtured for long,
And grow it a bonsai in another pot,
How nice it would be
To resurrect oneself in others’ voice
Once this body surrenders to silence!
Crematoria have advanced with machinery
But the poor human cells continue to bite dust ultimately.
Of what use is the travel from dust to dust?
If man can travel from one to another
Death assumes a different connotation.
That’s why I say
A country is not a mass of earth.
This bod is a body of people!
.
Kondepudi Nirmala
Telugu, Indian
- Image Courtesy: Kondepudi Nirmala
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