Translated from the Hindi by Sejal Arora
Women Who Adorn Themselves in the Evening
They are told that they are not prostitutes, but married women,
Thus entitled, they adorn themselves post noon with pride
They are also told they are not maids,
But mistresses of the house,
And so, dolled up, to the best of their ability,
They rustle up scrummier vegetables in the kitchen, better than yesterday.
They are told
Here, no one would throw coins at them,
So they fearlessly perch on their balconies,
And wait
For the men
In whose name the house stood,
The house where they lived,
Who held the money
They spent,
Whose children
They bore
And raised.
When they saw those men swaying at the street corner,
They would swing open the door,
And, feigning tiredness, would slump onto the bed.
Women who adorned themselves in the evening
were not taken far from home,
so they did not realize
that in the prostitutes’ quarters too,
All this happened
almost
the same way.
Bhasha Knows
The pigeon doesn’t know, nor the cuckoo,
The mango and peepal don’t know.
Not even the amma knows—
The one you first photographed,
And then wrote a poem.
No one knows
How many lies were spun.
How many words
were wrought from one’s own flesh,
And how many
were ripped from others’ bones?
And how many
were just picked up
Along the way,
And tucked into the crown.
But bhasha knows.
One day, you’ll see her
Sitting beneath the stage
In the dusk,
Muttering curses.
House
House—
That shuts out the entire world
Whose first wall
Stands between you and me,
Then comes the second, third, and fourth,
And finally a roof,
Our defiance to the mercies of the sky.
House—
Where there is a door,
Where we stand with a stick to keep out dogs and cats,
And roar at our enemies all over the world.
Home—
Where there is a window,
From which we peer out
To check the enemy’s preparations,
And taste the blood in the air
With a swirl of our finger.
Home—
Where we fix a button at the doorway,
One that plays the Gayatri mantra in the morning,
And Hanuman chalisa in the evening.
That home—
Standing
Atop the chest of boiling lava beneath the earth—
Defiantly cocking a snook.
I once saw that home as a symbol of refuge.
But you, with some magic,
Have turned it into a fortress of desire.
Now, often, I am afraid to step inside.
Self-Betrayal
... And then the nation stood,
hands folded in surrender to endure its plight.
In unison, they cried,
“Give us pain,
More pain,
More suffering,
More agony.”
They had grown tired of joy—
Laughter that came unbidden,
The morning tea,
The rituals, the bells,
The sunlight, the incense, the lamps,
The same worn paths,
The television, the quilts, the kitchen,
The bathroom, the constipation, the gas,
The jokes, the news,
The scurrying of mice,
The fashion fancies of wives and daughters.
They had grown tired of freedom
And now, merely for entertainment,
They summoned
Violence,
Death,
Murder,
Suffering.
They demanded violence,
Roamed door to door asking for it,
Singing hymns of murderers,
Slowly edging the non-violent away,
Telling the weak, “Run away,
Leave, go where you find your own land.”
They scoured the streets for a king,
A true king,
An idol of power with a broad chest,
Strong thighs, steel wrists—
A god who would command,
Who would beat and drag them around,
Whose only thought in his most sacred moments
Was of murder.
... Eventually, they found them—
All sorts of tyrants,
All sorts of oppressors,
Who pushed the limits of endurance further and further.
They emerged from everywhere—
From every house,
Every alley,
Every dark corner,
Strutting,
Roaring,
Challenging,
Shoving with their elbows,
Lashing whips upon the bored,
Weary, waiting masses.
... And the masses were pleased.
Those who had grown tired of beating their wives,
Their children,
the street dogs—
They were pleased.
Those sick of the unchecked success
Of their dishonesty, cunning, manipulations,
They were pleased.
Those who laughed so much they began to fart,
Those frustrated by their constant happiness,
They were pleased.
They were pleased,
Who now desired something else—
Like blood filling every street,
Tears filling the drains,
Screams that reached beyond the seven skies
Into god’s bedroom.
And a god,
Who stood above all the worlds,
With a phallus in one hand and a knife in the other,
Spitting blood once, then blood again,
And the third time, semen—
As if it were raining.
Tired of the rains,
The winters,
The summers,
And of the endless cycle of their coming and going each year,
All those people were pleased,
And the sorcerers who turned their pleasure into blood
Were even more pleased.
There Was a Country
There was a country
that didn’t know how to speak.
It simmered, groaned, writhed,
But standing on the stage, it couldn’t utter a word.
Standing before ambition,
It trembled,
Holding water on the dais, with its mouth parched,
It hangs on the crucifix of the fierce gazes of hungry spectators.
Then it found a speaker,
Who had no regard even for the eyes of hope.
When someone embraced him,
he would mock their laughter and sell it,
while the country laughed along.
It had finally mastered the art of laughter.
Even when smooth talker sat atop its chest,
projecting his intentions through its throat,
It still laughed.
Centuries of suppressed laughter
gnawed at it,
And it kept laughing.
This was its salvation—
The one it had been searching for,
Since the time of its forefathers’ forefathers’ forefathers.
R. Chetankranti is a Hindi poet from Saharanpur. He is a noted journalist, critic, copy editor and translator. His two poetry collections Shoknach and Veerta Par Vichalit, have won him many accolades, including the prestigious Bharatbhushan Agarwal Puraskar. The poems in this issue are translated from his latest collection, Aatmadroh (2023).
Sejal Arora is a Delhi-based (trying-to-be) translator. She has been longlisted for the Mozhi Prize once.