The Sea And The Rain For Print

NAGATIHALLI RAMESH

The Sea and the Rain Translated from Kannada by Ankur Betageri

Don’t say it is bland Say ‘put a grain of salt!’ from Avva’s Words

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First Impression: Jan 2008 No of copies: 2000 No of pages: Price: This work is protected by the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India Licence. You are free to share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work under the condition that you attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), that you do not use this work for commercial purposes and that you do not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Published by: Shrusti Prakashana #550, Second Main Water tank Road RBI Layout Puttenahalli J P Nagar 7th Phase Bangalore 560078. India. Printed at: Jwalamukhi Printers #44/1, K R Road Basavanagudi Bangalore 560 004

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NAGATIHALLI RAMESH, born in 1967 in Nagatihalli village of Nagamangala taluk, Mandya, Karnataka has a Bachelor of Science degree from Bangalore University, a Diploma in Journalism from Mysore University and a Bachelor of Law degree from Bangalore University. In the 80s he participated in one hundred and fifty intercollegiate debate competitions and won prizes in all of them. He has been serving as editor, printer and publisher of the magazine Spardha Prapancha for the past twelve years. His field of interest includes environment, travel, reading, music, drama and short-film making. Considering his contribution to the field of environment, the arts, literature and social work, the Government of Karnataka honoured him with the Youth Award for the year 1988-89. For his contribution to the field of environment, the Department of Forest, Environment and Zoology has bestowed upon him the Environment Award for the year 2001-02. For activities concerning environment, tourism development, culture and lifestyle he has traveled to Srilanka, Maldives, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Dubai and Indonesia. He is a member of YMCA Karnataka State Peace and Brotherhood Association, Founder of Socially Concerned Friend’s Circle, President of Spandana Yuvajana Kendra and Vicepresident of Paraspara Saamajika Samsthe. Through Srusti Prakashana he is involved in publishing books, launching audio cassettes and making short films. He is currently based in Bangalore. Books edited: Buddha Pragne, Maanavatavaadi Malliah. The Sea and the Rain (Samudra Mattu Male) is his first collection of poems. You can reach him at: [email protected].

ANKUR BETAGERI, born on the 18th of November 1983, is a bilingual poet based in Bangalore. He has published a collection of poetry in English entitled The Sea of Silence (2000) and two collections in Kannada entitled Hidida Usiru (2004) and Idara Hesaru (2006).

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To the motherly touch of the fingers of my grandmother Nanjamma who used to starve to keep me from crying. To the cloudy eyes of father Rangappa which used to cool me even in his city dress. Mother who sits in the darkness of the house and when I ask, ‘where is father?’ says ‘Yeah, I have eaten.’ When I hand the blanket saying, ‘What cold! Take the blanket avva,’ She gathers the mud and spreading it, Says, ‘shall I cover you, son?’ I say, ‘It’s dark; shall I light the lamp mother?’ she replies, ‘Why, have you grown old?’ Seeing me crying my heart out she, who laughingly says, ‘Your life’s like being cooked in cold water my son,’ and suddenly starts crying; to her who wanders from village to village 4

and singing songs held in her palms turns darkness into light; to the earth-heart of my mother Kempakka. Nagatihalli Ramesh

‘My mother lived countless poems, but she never wrote one.’ I for one, with my poems, wrote hers as well. ‘The song that sleeps silently in the mother’s heart sings on the lips of the child.’ -Khalil Gibran

I wrote To live with my mother for a few days To make the lives of people around. -Nagatihalli Ramesh

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You talk of relationship and non-relationship. If you know, please tell what is and is not a relationship? Body relationship life relationship praana relationship – He who understands these relationships three is a relative, O Lord of caves. -Allama Prabhu

Where was the mango tree, where the koel bird when were they kin? Mountain gooseberry and sea salt: when 6

were they kin? and when was I kin to the Lord of caves? -Allama Prabhu (Tr. by A K Ramanujan)

Relationship is a big thing man. -Devanooru Mahadeva

Contents PREFACE TRANSLATOR’S NOTE QUESTIONS

OF LONELINESS AND

DARKNESS

My Mother My Mother – 2 Father Mother, Father and Me My Grandmother The Sea and the Rain Waves: Rangolis Drawn by my Mother It is Raining on the Sea Woman Like a Drop of Rain This is Just a Line 7

Wandering Paths which History Doesn’t Recognize Avva’s Words Roots Condition Flower and Fiber From the Diaries of the Dead When Ocean Stands, Head Bowed A Journey through the Desert Like Blood Splashed Mother’s Children The Spark Source which Never Empties They who thought it was… Lots to do Amoeba Tightened Chain of Ice It is Becoming Blue Again On this Earth Happiness Natural Life What the Jogi Said Baba Budan Giri ‘When the ground is wet’ Patent Notice Denizens of Road 8

Ocean in the Drop We are Tribal Fruit Fallen to the Ground The Drop of Sweat Fate and Grains World of Dew Give the Street Kids Some Space to Sleep Like Ashes Growing on Smolders (Inspired by a haiku by Buson Yosa) Before Unfurling Wings Our Children To Mother Earth My People You Strategy Song of Life Power of Faith Time Root-word of Fulfillment First Step of Creation Question of the Bowl Mud Lamp Drizzle Beneath the Palms Holding Water Jogi’s Question Wisdom

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Breaching the Order of Face, the Tail had Shook Water and Fire Generation Kallu Baana The Saga of Drunkenness Reflection of Darkness Prison Song The Song of Mother AFTERWORD SUCCESS STORY

OF A

VILLAGER

Preface THE COMMUNICATIVE skills of Nagatihalli Ramesh were proverbial during his student days when he astounded everyone by winning more than a hundred prizes in open debates in colleges in and outside Bangalore during just one year. That he also pens poetry is, however, a happy revelation to me, having only now gone through his anthology of poems, The Sea and the Rain. With humble beginnings in life as can be made out from his simple and yet touching poems, he has scaled great heights in more fields than one. The confidence that he exudes is quite contagious as evidenced by the organizational successes he has achieved in quite a few fields. A majority of the poems included in this anthology are of a personal nature in the same sense that the focal point in most of the poems is his mother, who in the process becomes the mother, thanks to the archetypal images associated with her. It was during the 18th century that William Cowper wrote his memorable sentimental poem about his mother and the chair she sat on. Nothing in that poem affects the reader more than the intimacy, comfort and honour in the context of the mother. It is that same warmth and comfort that characterize Ramesh’s poems centred round his mother, father, 10

grandmother and so on. It is an ever present mother that has etched herself permanently on the sensitive mind of Ramesh who basks in the sunshine of his native milieu. It is only occasionally that emptiness haunts him and always the distress is followed by cosy thoughts about the mother. Another noteworthy string of thought that runs through his poems is the edifying nature of labour. This is a classical sentiment enshrined in folklore. It is also central to every community for whom agriculture is mainstay. Coming from this background Ramesh can jolly well declare that he who has ploughed the earth is a billionaire in the poetry of love but at the same time he deplores exhibitionism as unwholesome Status, looks, wealth should be like the work of an earthworm underneath the ground. As the earthworm climbs up closer comes death. Paradoxically enough, what is deplored is creativity, too, for the “earthworm underneath the ground” is creative, which status cannot be. The simile seems to be inapt, but the purport of the poet is quite unambiguous. There are pantheistic outbursts like in The forest springs forth many tunes and melodies that is the spoken word of our little child. Hope in the midst of agony, a longing for a better and brighter future, are in the ultimate analysis what the poet projects. He hopes to “make tomorrows our pillows.” But the pillows might be elusive, considering that the predatory nature of man might become manifest anytime. That is why the “underwater creatures” have a precarious existence: Who has seen the tears of underwater creatures?

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The tears are there nevertheless. Having witnessed the horrors perpetrated by inhuman criminals in Cambodia, the poet is justly indignant about the rapacious malignant monster who plunders innocent poor people with no feelings. This plunderer – the United States, for example – is like the mythical Cain given to motiveless murder. However painful the ravages of war, one has to put up with it during and after the deadly event. The brutal marauder unleashing terror on innocent unarmed people walks away with his trophy leaving the victims to their fate. That has been the long story of a whole century of dastardly crimes by a mighty power which has regard neither for culture nor for life. The shields of the bombs and shells that America dropped on Laos have become homes for many people today. One only hopes that there shall be no more such homes either in Laos or elsewhere. That is the humanistic feeling that thematically pervades the poems of Ramesh. Equally vehement is the poet in Ramesh to chastise those whose indiscriminate destruction of civilization in the name of a higher civilization. (See “Like Blood Splashed” for instance). The net impact is that the birds are learning to fly even before hatching from eggs It is not the tending of life but tormenting it. And that is what disturbs Ramesh. Surely a healthy disturbance when one realizes that the spark of light is being doused as easily as pinching the wick of a candle Ramesh deserves our congratulations on exploring the conscience of man today and the translator deserves it too for his creative endeavour. G Ramakrishna 12

22nd October 2007

Translator’s Note TRANSLATING a work of desi Kannada into contemporary English I have faced many challenges, and these challenges I have overcome in my own ways. I could not do without Indianisms, and I hope at least these usages will make the discerning reader reach out to the social and cultural contexts of rural 13

India which are the well springs of many of the poems here. The author Nagatihalli Ramesh has been very forthcoming in clarifying the meaning of the idiomatic usages for which I have tried my best to find the closest English equivalent. As a translator my greater agenda has always been to incorporate the experience of rural India which plays a crucial role in shaping the character of the average Indian. If this experience continues to occupy the backyard of our consciousness, even in this era of globalization, it might hamper our very integrity as individuals, leading to shallowness and falsity as we open ourselves up to the influences of the outer world. I do not know to what extent I have been successful in acquainting the nonIndian reader with the nuances and complexities of colloquial Kannada whose meanings spring out of the deep relation that the people here share with the soil. But I would like to believe that the concerns and conflicts expressed here are universal, and, as such, it would be no surprise if the rich significance of these poems flow unhampered through the deeper connectedness of humankind. I invite you to be a part of this poetic journey of growth and deeper understanding.

Ankur Betageri Bengaluru

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Author’s Note Questions of Loneliness and Darkness These are just questions that I have asked myself. Writing this down gives me peace. Why does darkness and loneliness descend upon man? When does it dawn? What are the effects of gaining and loosing relationships? What is the play of light and darkness hiding in this? What kind of influence can this play of light and darkness have on the success and failure of man? What do relationships fill in a man? And why does he feel the emptiness when there are no relationships? Is this state experienced only by a child? Does an old man escape from this state? This body which gets attached to things and burns, why does it feel futile? Why do human beings love with a vengeance and remain attached to people? Which fear are they haunted by? Whose crushing foot has made them immobile? So, the foundation on which we have built our civilization, is it wrong? If we get an answer to this question would the decadent path followed by civilization be revealed? Thinking about all this and not finding an answer, and stuffing all these thoughts to a corner of the mind, and taking them out standing on some footpath, and analyzing them with new thoughts... and still no answer. The koel sings beautifully. Pulling some remote strings, a man sings. An old woman, collecting torn clothes, stitches a quilt. What is the feeling behind the crying of a little child? What is it that the child seeks? What is the mindset of a soldier who has lost his hands in the war? Did his sword cheat him? The flapping sound of the birds which are flying in their hearts, what does it say? Why do men write poems? Can everyone see truth? Whoever has seen: it is the essence of his experience. 15

Its realization is not possible with the words formed around it. Only sometimes, one feels the poetry of mystics have a clear vision in them. In the midst of our work when we remember its experience we remember the poem and with it, the poet. He wanders like a friend, an enemy and a companion. Like someone about to tell a secret, he laughs, it is the sign of love. In the words of the poet it’s like handing over the key to life’s mystery. How Failure and Success Shape a Person My life is a road broken into many paths. Since the time I was born my eagerness, failures, inferiority, despair, loneliness, orphan-ness and suicidal attempts had made me so desperate that I had become like an ant sinking in the mud. To what extent can the love and concern of people can flow? Is it true that only those who have struggled and suffered get shelter among people? I am still haunted by the memories of people who helped me. Does the pain that we experience leave marks on our face? Did people see these marks and helped me, or was it the life jumping in me which devised this elaborate game and pushed me into it? I completed my Bachelors in Science and a correspondence course in journalism from Mysore University and got a degree in Law from evening college. With this my college life ended. I used feel that I was happy while at college. When I had to leave college I was haunted by the big question of ‘what next?’ I had a pair of trousers, a shirt and a bag full of prizes that I had won during my college days in open debate competitions. With these I wandered the streets of Bangalore. And while hunting for a job I sold these prize trophies one by one and managed to drink tea three times a day.

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Such being my condition one day I met my dear friend from college, Venkataranga. As they say, ‘by the time the grains and lentils finish, it rains.’ This friend took me to a hotel, brought me lunch and as though he was waiting to hear me all this while, sat silently listening to me. Then he took me straight to his house and explained my talent, helplessness and dreams to his parents Sri B Krishna and Sharada B Krishna. His father had already helped me by providing scholarship during my college days. He gave me an office and the required money to start the magazine Spardha Prapancha. And there were people like P Lankesh who didn’t want their name mentioned for help like these; I got a lot of encouragement from all these people. Lankesh, the honest and irreverent man, who wrote with an innate knowledge of those who had struggled and suffered, learning about me starting a magazine, encouraged me with a fund of three thousand rupees in 1993. When I returned the money in 1994, ‘Not bad… you proved that even shudras return the money lent,’ he said with a smile. Lankesh, gave the solace of a mother, made the lives of many like me, without recording them anywhere. Even in this time when everybody is sinking into a state of two-facedness I see people who still have faith and love in man. I have realised that there are thousands of hands in this society which have real concern and love. Isn’t this enough to boost our confidence to realize all our big dreams, and to ignite the determination of becoming one among those thousand hands! Dear friend and poet Ankur Betageri who translated this book into English, renowned thinker and the editor of Hosatu magazine Dr G Ramakrishna who wrote the preface, my friend-poet Phoenix Ravi who wrote the Afterword and friend and painter Vishnu who designed the cover and did the illustrations, all those who helped in bringing out this book, all the people who saved my life with their love, I cannot repay them with anything but my life. Nagatihalli Ramesh

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My Mother Pulling off the thatch she has played the song in the open the earth has become a cradle and life with her is singing word for word. Holding the edge of her mother’s saree scattering mud in meeting paths she has pinched and plucked the thorn in my foot: like turning into tears the pain settled in heart. When I went in search of you which village? which keri1? Every road has haunted like a tree birds have flown in and out 1

Keri: Keri is a Dalit settlement found outside or in the outskirts of the village. When untouchability was still in practice people from the keri were not allowed to enter the village.

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darkness has entered the eyes. The seven villages around have opened like a branching river wherever you have walked the smell of rain; the only clue that you’d been there. You have pelted stones at the stone god to the hungry and bare skinned you have given aplenty, you have smiled like a star at the husband who without becoming a tomb remained a well. Mother of crying children you pulled me into your whirlpools seeing me clutched tight and being fed you became the haystack of the harvest. I’m the fish lifted out of water, the tears of the depths are flowing like water towards the spark burning underneath.

You are the queen of blue mountains streams are flowing from your head towards your feet, I’m the ant playing in the depths – I’m looking up at you and a thousand elephants are running in my eyes. She is the forest-rain in the forest the thorn bush, and the stream of black boulders encircling the fields; the ocean which hides all that floods within. O everyone’s mother who is she? 19

O everyone’s village which is it?

My Mother – 2 I build a tiled-roof house for mother for her to be good. This is in accordance with her wishes I assume, and building a wall in between I was one who thought, let her sleep in the shade. Why darkness? Let there be light whenever required. Putting the light I called mother to my lively home. 20

She who walked like an elephant with an single-minded gaze smiled like an ant. I wake up as usual and rubbing eyes, I look at the house: what a game fate has played. Electric wires have been pulled off and me hanging like dead web; beautifully carved walls as if battered in some war, have fallen. Is she a goddess beside her a stone ball, the mud of fields all over her bed: she is simply sleeping pulling off everything. As it turns into evening she, who walks into that home walking into darkness mixes her poetry to the dense wandering silence, to the darkness, like a flower blooming in a wind which does not blow; words come to her flying and gather around like bees. Getting up in the morning a singular hurry, she has a bag in hand. To some village she has to go, she has to see someone – she has no slippers on her feet she doesn’t even know the name of the village but she reaches it. Between the rubbed off lines of 21

her foot which Pushpaka Vimana2 she’s hiding god alone knows. When she’s not there only her thoughts for me leaving the river where can the mother fish swim? As I think thus she appears again. She tells something she sitting child-like awakens us sitting around, she must be a queen in her own kingdom. Thinking that I am a prince I do everything she says and bow. Without knowing whether it’s wrong or right thinking that it must be right for her I am a-thrill within. The game that I devised has pulled me inside like a pawn. I jump every step into the frame of the game and call ‘mother,’ that’s my first mistake. My extreme belief that she believed everything that I said – tying my own hands I’m standing witness to the mistake a judgment, on this, has to come from her. He who wanted to make a bamboo vase wandered all over the forest 2 Pushpaka Vimana: The mythical aero plane mentioned in the Ramayana.

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not to find bamboo but to find out what kind of flowers would bloom in his bamboo vase. If the flower believes that it is the best it is a burden for that vase, what is the judgment inside this turmoil? This does not come under any section or code to call you as witness you lack experience, because even the slightest of mistakes would kill me and my mother.

Father My mother is a lullaby-singing bird of an ancient home on the plains; when the song had filled the spaces following the route of that song my father flew from the blue mountains like a migrating bird in search of life and shining in his suit I have heard, he married my mother. 23

After sometime this wanderer who wandered like the song in a desert sat waiting for my mother like a fountain of water. She stood in front of him and smiled when he went to catch she sparkled and shrivelled; he ran like a wild horse searched on the blue sea where only her smells and reflections were wandering. Drinking and reaching his depths he began to dig a well in himself how many times it collapsed in his eyes that well digging and collapsing collapsing and digging O mountains and peaks, O streams carrying the mud, spread your saree here – he prayed. As he entered the depths his fortune dwindled his bungalows vanished farms were pawned; when the villagers called him names he grinned and left the place. When mother’s song passed the womb of his eye he became a coolie among the village coolies withholding all its layers the well opened when the water spurted into a fountain and the whole village gathered; in a broken cycle and torn coat, father, was still standing. Resounding noise of the village my mother’s deep song 24

the whisper of birds – listening to all this he remained a well without becoming a tomb. Mother is still there: like a fruit holding a million trees in her womb.

Mother, Father and Me Floating on the raft of tears wide-eyed and sucking thumb when I first saw my father I was five years old.

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Again, in shabby clothes, tousled haired a scared-eyed 10-year-old when I encountered him he picked me up unawares and feeding sticks to the bathroom furnace he was profusely weeping. In that darkness stammering dirt… dirt… dirt… he was rubbing even as the skin on my back peeled off; then, father’s memory haunted me like fear. I have been astonished at my father who unfurled his wings and danced like a peacock to the lullabies and songs of my mother who flowed like a stream throughout the forest of the village. The truth of father passing away without remarrying flashes like a bolt of lightening Now the mark on the back like seed-planted earth longs for the rain. Even now I have seen clouds forming in father’s eyes as he remembers mother mumbling in the dark. Now like a tree I descend the depths of the ground I swell in happiness looking at birds 26

building nests over me – I stare and laugh at the woodpecker which pecks and pecks until it forms a burrow – I draw into my heart the living voices which whirl and dart about me. Sloughing off loneliness I become the fruit to the beak of dreamy-eyed migrating birds. Budding again, and bearing fruits and flowers.

My Grandmother With a burning belly 27

she was born to work; spilling children she tilled the fields and filled the palms with seeds; she taught how to seed. By teaching how to hold the plough she instilled in me a firmness. Harvesting ragi, jowar, avare, horse gram and sesame crops she used to end the harvest time celebrating her native land. She took care of me a toddler on four legs. With her eyes she would curse the crows and eagles flying over the hut. Before leaving for the field she made me sit on my haunches and giving a stick to my hand taught me how to look after chicks and went half-heartedly. Carrying water on a bamboo bar feeding water to every coconut plantation she became the breath. As the planted ones went on unfolding the fronds considering it’s height and fruit in the mind ‘This tree is a mighty one it will come to life like a sandal’ -she said. To the sound of the coconut falling at night she would wake up like one always meditating on it. In reply to the cows of the villages she domesticated a buffalo. Even when they stood barren she squeezed the breast of goats and fed me milk. We, who were crying in hunger when promised rice for the night would stop crying. Every Saturday 28

was like a fair. Fair, was puffed rice, sev and battasu3 and dreams of tasty meals. The memory of putting a handful of puffed rice to black coffee and getting the lips to bite them makes the body bloom even now. Everything changes rain and summer spread into winter. Looking at people who made use of the goodness in people and later torched their foundations ‘where’s the time for goodness,’ she would wail. God knows what quarrel, to what whispers she turned morose – in the village only we two remained lonely. How many parrots in the stories she used to tell, all knew how to speak and had flown in from a different land. The elephant was defeated in front of the ant, in front of Sita, Rama had shrunk. She gave so many weapons to Rama that Arjuna himself ran away from the battlefield. Even Kunti stood head-bowed even his guru stood ashamed as sun disappeared at mid day. Coins with holes one, two, three… paisas only sometimes she lived in a quarter and half-a-rupee time. Before seeing the rupee my grandpa had died, my mother was wandering from village 3 Battasu: A kind of coloured sugar candy usually eaten with puffed rice and sev.

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to village and was singing the songs of the soil. In the time of new coins my grandmother disappeared like old lost coins. O my mother, the owner of land what is the colour of your hands which tied the kacche4 and tilled the land? When you stand with your wings unfurled a fair of blooming flowers the celebration of parrots, peacocks crows and sparrows – why do they gather around you? every leaf of grass sprouts at the time of dew. Even heaven bows in front of your dreams: in the fair of your memories even the palace collapses.

4 Kacche: A traditional way of wearing the saree or dhoti

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The Sea and the Rain Dusk the clouds have gathered and it’s raining hard. Like a dark dot of charm lightening and thunder. In the field mother like a lamp is wandering among the grown-up crops. I sat on the hillock and watching the earth covered by the skies in one sight, called out loud: ‘Avva!’ My child running over my heart’s cry of tears, holding the saree-end of my mother and with his thumb in mouth, follows her. The sign of love that grew between me and mother is a dense sea full of memories I run to mother who stands like a sea in the rain. My mother like an innocent girl holds my child in the left hand and my wife’s hand with the right the chariot of their walking feet is moving ahead I, a devotee pulling that chariot, no matter how far, I am someone who has tied it’s rope to my back. In the footsteps walked by time not placing my feet even by mistake I recognize the ‘cheetah’ even in the dark. Seeking the grains and lentils of life rushing into the fields those who cast a net on our very heart know the loss of having lost the net. 31

How to stop loving if you ask me to stop? After being kin to the stickiness of heart. 2. The time when everything turns to mud does life grow heavy? O nectar like love what is the last game of your finger touch? Hold me still closer I will only evaporate what is the last song of the river which hugs the sea? Clouds, rain, earth… what are all these? When will it be unravelled that the sea is greater than the Himalayas?

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Waves: the Rangolis5 Drawn by my Mother An unknown voice calls not out of the house, out of this very body! How shall I go before listening to the words of mother? Wasn’t she the one who built a wall around this life, and filling blood called it a lake? If the water flows out of the lake doesn’t it go waste like a broken stringed tamboori6? In the darkness of the den in the whirlpools of water in the flame of forest-fires in all my ‘desires’ and ‘concerns’ I have seen its shadow; the life-wing inside has cried and fluttered. Then, I first remember my mother if she lets her hair loose, and stands in a kacche7 with me where would it run for her one cry it’s pillars would start melting and dripping like wax. When she walks the trees bow down and stretch their shade while ascending the mountains paths the birds start singing.

5 Rangoli: A pattern-picture drawn in front of the house usually by joining the dots, or by looping the lines around the dots. 6 Tamboori: a stringed instrument used by poor wandering singers and singers of religious songs. 7 Kacche: A particular style of draping a dhoti or a saree which allows the legs to move more freely.

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She walks inside the house and outside the house. When once I followed her saying Avva8… avva… she threw my black stone into the tank, and singing went somewhere far away.

Mother, who is not there even when she is there spreads like a forest within me I who have lost the way stammer: avva… avva… When she finds me again she caresses and says, ‘Where were you, you were not to be seen,’ and sits singing through the night. I can hear the consoling words of a few people and also the knife-edged words which cut through my gut. A few others being mothers themselves rub ointment over the cut wounds. I should tell everything to mother I run again and again shaking head like she heard everything, throwing whatever she gets on me she walks away into the plains. I who run behind not seeing her even in the plain cry ‘avva… avva…’ I hear someone crying avva from that side. I somehow decide and try to jump towards it by sleeping on railway tracks by walking into sea by going to the peaks of mountains; 8 Avva: Colloquial way of calling mother; corresponds to the English mummy or mama.

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an invisible hand grabs then and when I turn back it’s avva. ‘What are you doing here? I was searching for you everywhere,’ she says and hands jaggery and groundnuts to me. What is the lifespan of the rain which rains on the sea? And isn’t she the sea itself? Me who came out of her, am sitting on a boat when storms rise the wings which come and the life which wants to fly away I have consoled rubbing on its back when calm, I dream of reaching some other shore. I go on rowing where would she take me? the waves which rose at that birth the rangolis written by my mother between that my journey… Avva, tell me where is the end of your love?

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It’s Raining on the Sea We have to face each other and and he is not ready I’m reminded of the paths in the field that we walked together, the hands which quarreled for the wafers of ragiball sticking to the bottom of the cooking-pot… Waving the torn clothes of father and mother in lake, and waiting for fishes which wouldn’t come the moments we stood, our backs bent to hunger. The dense smell of avare, ragi and jowar of somebody’s field that we burnt and ate at midnight. Collecting honge, hippe and neem seeds before the crowing of the cock the days we waited for Saabanna who would bring peanuts on the cycle… Even when the ground broke into fissures on the passing of famines our tears didn’t stop. The grandpas and grandmas who sat like the deities of the home with their ash-covered-ember eyes haunt me. He is not ready, 36

to take shape with all these things old. When he was the insect crawling on plants and trees I was the earthworm underneath, tilling the soil. He was the firefly flying from plant to tree and by the time people started to praise the light, I had hidden my head among rotten flowers and fallen leaves. He might have lots of reasons to go far I do not need any reason to love; to rain on the sea, is its permission required? He is not ready he acts like all his memories have faded the flower blooms and wilts, even the tree which had flowered dies, eaten away by termites. The smell it has left in me becomes a humongous tree and sprouts well before the Spring, I have held back the tears hidden in heart from falling to the ground; thinking that one day he would hug me tight and become my mother… We must face each other, if he doesn’t get ready I have no choice but to climb the staircase of that court.

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Woman The woman is very picky she doesn’t swallow everything she gets; man is the sensuous one who licks everything he gets. Civilizations drowned because of this sensuousness. But the woman who sat in between, sorting the illusion, dream and theory in her nirvana holds his hands from civilization to civilization.

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Like A Drop of Rain Walking in the forest path as the sun blazed on my head hungry, I opened the lunch box The roti had mother’s fingerprints on them. Mother’s memory is making the long road ahead easy.

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This is Just a Line My grandmother who was ‘mother’ to me since birth told me that she who was known to me as ‘my sister’ was actually my mother. When she was in her last sleep I went to see her. The lamp in her urgency had burned really fast, the flame was only as big as the grain of a corn. How terrified she must have been that night. Was death crushing her beneath its thumb? I moved towards the bed and said, as usual, ‘mother!’ I heard my own echo again. ‘Even as she breathed she didn’t respond she didn’t break her promise.’ I who did, 40

became the calf of Dharanimandala9 who mumbled, ‘grand ma, my grand ma!’ Who will take care of me which language will take me to her? She somehow said that and walked off firmly leaving only her footprints. How to transform mother into grandmother? To the poison of broken promise I have stood like a stone. Ahalye10 teach me how to meditate. In the day the night in the night the day seeps in, not in every season is there such a miracle. I call my grandmother ‘mother’ again no one has heard a stone as yet. How to transform someone who I always thought to be sister into mother? This question is enough for meditation. As I thought my sister was like an incense stick when lit, and as my grandmother had told, like a perfume like the very sandal she stood, 9 Dharanimandala: literally, the earth. Here, it refers to a very popular Indian folk story about a truthful cow’s encounter with a hungry tiger. A tiger ambushes a cow which has strayed away from the herd. The cow requests the tiger to allow it to feed its calf and promises to return. The tiger doesn’t believe that the cow would return but still lets it go. The cow returns home, feeds the calf and entrusting the calf to its relatives and friends, comes back to the tiger and offers itself as its food. The tiger moved by the cow’s truthfulness and feeling terrible about having thought of killing it, jumps off the cliff and kills itself. 10 Ahalye: A character in the epic, Ramayana. A woman cursed into being a stone; she revived after being touched by Lord Rama’s toe.

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O my brothers. From the bottom the statue is cracking can’t you hear that sound? This poem is just a line of the sound of that crack.

Wandering Paths which History Doesn’t Recognize Below the stars for whom does it rain? In a village faraway, a village festival, the sound of drums and atmosphere of a fair, when is the time when men’s voices get wet in celebration it must have rained in that village. The wheels of ox carts which come from that land will be covered by moss bells tied to the neck will be shining and chime with new sounds. the cow- and goat-herds of our village listening to that drum-beat with their cow and goat, travel that path, pitching tents in the midst of greens they open new pages of life. Little children on those pages write the pictures of 42

colourful flowers elephant, ant, tiger, deer, cheetah, grasshopper, butterfly lake, field and plain. Hearing the news of rains in their village they touch their ears and remove their tents and leave. Dog, sheep, goat, donkey, cattle return grown stout, like going to a playground the young ones come jumping. Avva who reached the house dusting, cleaning the floor, drawing rangoli boils lentils in salt water, driving sheep and goats into the pen tying the cattle in the shed keeping water for the thirst of the husband she serves hot ragiball and curry. Lighting the lamp and splitting the dark room she opens the pouches and sacks brought on back of the donkey containing groundnuts, jaggery, lentils and rice and embroidered old cloths, and loosening the knots of saree ends having sandalwood flakes and chunks of sugar she calls the children. Children, eating groundnuts, jaggery, rock sugar smelling the barks of sandal look wide eyed at the opened sacks. Separating the lentils and grains keeping the sprouted grains aside she meditates on tomorrow’s rain. Like a curtain between the earth and the sky in the same speed the body heats up. Like being called by the thunder and lightening, 43

like little stones flung on the coconut fronds, covered over the house, a sound and the roof begins to drip. The cock, hen and the chicks which walked out proudly somewhere mother calls in… making sounds like them. Even children happily go ‘kva kva!’ their cry-song never ending… After the passage of a long time from some corner, the ‘kva kva’ sounds come splitting through the darkness. Avva with her eyes closed beneath the blanket opening them like getting a boon for her meditation cries kva kva koooo… again in the darkness like pipers playing trumpets on street. Listening to it the fowls which come shaking their bodies as if returning from a victory The chicken who stand bewildered to mothers scolding, the hens and cocks which sleep even as they hear her out. Children pushing the fronds on the hut watching the shapes of lightening and thunder startled, with their bodies turned cold, cuddle under the warm saree of their mother isn’t there mother where children’s fear hide? This emptiness which fills at its will if mother is not there, if she is absent even in her presence who stands in that empty space who calling, caresses and fondles?

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Avva’s Words Heavy rains bring wealth and danger at once.

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The charm of the blue sky is the play of lightening, thunder and storm. Why son, I see no jewellery on your face?

We keep the ritual food for the dead, feeling sorry for their insatiable desires.

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People nowadays act like they carry the earth on their heads.

They who say don’t look for the source, know its result.

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Remember your previous step wash your heel.

He who climbs must definitely be small and reaching, should become clean.

When the clouds have gathered try to forget the pain, it will definitely rain. No part of earth has ever remained completely barren.

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Do not mock saying he hasn’t learnt the letters, he who has ploughed the earth is a billionaire in the poetry of love.

Your life, like being cooked in cold water.

When the thorny jackfruit is clawed open the sweet flesh inside is like the soul of the poor man.

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For a long journey three are better than one.

When the ground id wet the termite lifts the mud up.

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Status, looks, wealth should be like the work of an earthworm underneath the ground. As the earthworm climbs up closer comes death.

Roots The tall mountain is no taller than the river, the river was born there a bit above the mountain.

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The ice candy of the village fair gave birth to the city and emptied the village.

The forest springs forth many tunes and melodies that is the spoken word of our little child.

The depth length breadth and height of orphans is more, is more. 52

The question is looming large. We spread the question and make it our pallet; make tomorrows our pillows. The stars are leaning towards us fruits are dangling.

Though the lover has stabbed and killed his love yesterday’s memories of love are killing his tomorrows.

Who has seen the tears of underwater creatures? 53

Word history turns the scoundrels of this land into gods; folk literature turns even the dry tree into a river.

A phony poem born on the heart of paper, death of another plant.

However high people might fly in the plane they have to return to soil.

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He who was thinking that nothing in the world was right woke up from his sleep, and the risen sun was washing the dirt.

The cobbler by seeing the face itself gets the measurement of the feet.

Do not share your pain and weaknesses; they could become the stairs taking you to the depths of hell. If tell people you must look for those who’re like mirrors.

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Condition The shields of the bombs and shells that America dropped on Laos have become homes for many people, today.

Flower and Fiber In pained eyes I’ve seen burning meteors Nobody grew for them even a small flower; with the newly brought fiber for them are being spun hanging ropes.

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From the Diaries of the Dead Those who enter Cambodia see a map of a thousand skulls these skulls one by one tell their stories which begin, ‘One day after the declaration of peace while returning from the war America, thinking that the bullets would go waste lined up thousands of Cambodians and killed them all.’

When Ocean Stands, Head Bowed When we bend our heads in front of the barber even as he follows our order the freedom of time which creates the game of his fingers, is a mystery of life.

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A Journey through the Desert They wander the deserts of Arabia seeking faraway blooms they pour sand on themselves and sing their own elegies. Between birth and death only a few times they see clouds. a Satan called storm snatches even them. With eyes clouded by dust they would have expected all these their eyes stretch in rapt desire towards the moon appearing at night. We Indians we have ocean, river, grass, plants mountains, hills and green valleys – we have ice-capped peaks, we also have hunger which we’ve created on our own. In the desert camel the companion of the lonely wanderer. When the stomach had stuck to the back on his shoulder as a companion there was a bird; with the flash in its eyes it would hunt the far-off prey and bring it to him. A day of those two lives would end in the flesh of burnt prey. Once in the water-spring oil spurted, like fruit, hen, grains and cloth it became the well-spring which brought pouch-fuls of gold, 58

the spring of oil became a well, everything began to come to where they sat. Water, seed, plants, climbers, artificial forests fishes and fowls, water fountains dazzling bungalows, girls bursting with youth, days without nights. Those who were wandering have joined now in a fair the storm is wandering with a howl old men are muttering as if in a dream ‘the tiger cub is dreaming wandering in an artificial forest holding its body against water fountains and hugging women falling in liquor bowls and growling in gambling halls to become like its father.’ Now the camels by the bungalows, beside the streets outside the museums and are eating someone’s garbage and are ruminating age-old ties.

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Like Blood Splashed Whenever they mention Bellary I’m reminded of its terrible heat, it’s like walking on a hot pan. Jaali shrubs which do not grow deep roots, wherever the earth has collapsed the lines of stone, the rain which pours, never stops still there is no water to drink. The treasury inside the monstrous hills and mountains; seeking minerals as soon as the helicopters spluttered around the village, everything changed. The tilling of tillers turned towards mountains and hills. I’m reminded of the fair of Maari festival; all around me the hills and mountains stand faded, before being shorn off they have bowed their heads. On the roads, red muddy water house, temple, shop, tree, plants, creepers all red, like the red of the hen sacrificed to prevent the craze of the son maddened with lust. Everything’s red, even the saree of a pregnant woman is red. Like a line of red ants smelling each others behinds 60

the lorries down the hills and mountains are passing. To collect cheap oar from passing lorries all along the flat road there is constant competition to dig life-pits. The whole village is alert; they roost over night nest and turn into day; the birds are learning to fly even before hatching from eggs – a weave of red to the market; lightening rain to the fashion bazaar. After the setting of sun the clouds appear as though they are bleeding red such is its terrible heat. Bellary, like walking on a hot pan.

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Mother’s Children Ragi, like farmers becoming one with the soil stretch their bodies to sun and into black grains break. Paddy, like the people of city below, there should always be water which is money. If water isn’t enough the pulp inside will wither and before bearing fruit it dies. Farmer puts his faith in the next rain and waits everyday as if meditating; and like plant buds sprouting in rain, he plays around like a jogi. His field is his world waiting-hut his palace parrot, blue jay, earthworm spider and ant are companions to till. Fate itself stands with him as the grains begin to swell. Hot blood of the city ate rice without seeing mud 62

so it can never know the biting habit of root.

The Spark For the pleasure of a few people turning the villages and fields barren, these palatial high-rises and luxurious apartments of crazy kings, are widening the highways of people’s heart. These villagers who lost their land for them stretching hands for rotten apples limes and grapes fallen by the fruit-shops of the city, are wandering the lanes as if cursed for life. To send them to prison, false crimes are being created; the spark of light is being doused as easily as pinching the wick of a candle.

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Source Which Never Empties The lotus blooms hiding its roots in the depths of the lake. Being in water but not being like it.

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They Who Thought It Was… Disgust and dirt take birth in the eye and die there only.

Lots To Do How many problems here? Counting them in itself is a problem ………………………………. waves, storms, cyclones, tsunamis themselves haven’t stayed here eternally.

Amoeba 65

No male till date has understood the pain of woman. he simply pretends – in her eyes his picture swells like an anxious amoeba.

Chain of Ice Tightens Now, in the lanes of the great cities crying rooms are being created.

It’s Becoming Blue Again The river is flowing swerving around and piercing through the boulders and rocks carrying afloat or drowning 66

stones, thorns, insects and thrown shards of glass. The river has turned red no one has seen its scratched body. Wandering around thousands of villages flowing in fields and groves it reaches the heart of the sea. The heart of the sea turning a little red, is becoming blue again.

On this Earth If everyone without knowing the gut writes like a scholar then no plants and trees would survive.

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Happiness Pain as long as it is inside swells; when it comes out, shrinks.

Natural life In devotion thought, the thought which broke the devotion.

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Jogi said He who lives in nature is better than an one who argues for it.

Baba Budan Giri The mountain has gone through the cloud the cloud which descended slowly swallowing the ground had become the gut.

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Patent Notice They who stole the different species from the forest and the different seeds of the land and flew in helicopters and planes, are teaching us environmentalism.

Denizens of the Road The progeny of those who spill thorns on road is still growing We till at night and sow the seed of light. When they walk on those roads let the roadside trees we planted solace them, and the thorns planted by them let it catch fire and let the roads become clean.

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Ocean in the Drop It was raining on the sea, the waves were throwing the dead fishes out, and with them the ones living. The crows and eagles flying above without bothering about any of these were spinning around the peanut-selling old man.

We Are Tribal We are tribal we neither sweat nor shudder at the hunters who walk around us we are used to feeding arrows for the fires of our furnace ever since.

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Fruit Fallen to the Ground Four people together cut the fruit sucking the juice and without returning the seed to earth but breaking it to pieces, laughing that it got over, walked off. The broken seed mixed with mud, turned into fertilizer and entering all kinds of life as it grew like time the flowers and fruits of the earth 72

began to bloom even in their eyes.

Drop of Sweat In the verandah while hundreds of intellectuals discussed about the poet, poetry, play, cinema and politics – the master of all that was tilling the soil till sunset. Now and then, the master was mentioned by the intellectuals – some said he was a hare-brained philosopher, 73

others that he was a mischief-monger, fated to be what he was. And some others still called him a stupid old man, a lunatic – The grains that he had brought from the fields and stacked were laughing, listening to all this. (Inspired by a folk tale)

Fate and Grains On every grain that is eaten the name of the eater is written until death suddenly pounces, this rule continues unbroken. Every grain one’s own, and after death that of someone else. With his death the story ends 74

the remaining grains, someone else’s… (Inspired by a Hindi saying)

World of Dew ‘This world of dew is only a world of dew and yet.’11 the sea roars, god knows what urgency – 11 A haiku by Kobayashi Issa

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the koel cries, who knows indicating what? Before vaporizing, the dew burns: one moment like a millennium. Is it the roar of the sea? or the indication of the koel?

Give the Street Kids Some Space to Sleep ‘In the midst of the greens sings the skylark free of all things.*’ Sitting in a gunny sack tied underneath 76

the Kengeri bridge of Bangalore my eyes which float seeking that sound identify within themselves all its colours and techniques the different incarnations of motherliness. All the sounds of the vehicles on the bridge, sound like that of the police. If remembered the whole day’s a mess. Many nights for their kicking practice they used us like guinea pigs. Only they know why they used to beat us like that. Like on the last cradle of civilization, there I was swinging off-balance. Once when my ball hit the net of the goal and untied the gunny sack I joined the great city. Even now amidst the green the skylark sings. Who knows which homeless child is playing there! (Inspired by a haiku by Basho) Like Ashes Growing on Smoulders Mother who travels from village to village, everyday, pitches a tent in every village 77

and ties a donkey to its right As usual the moon appears upon the house children gone begging, return – groping in the bag separating the grains she keeps three stones and douses the fire of the stomachs of hungry children. She has the big dream of building a house to stop the whirring wheel of time Even the children have the same dream but what to do life is not so easy. How to hide the spark of her urgent dream in the end of the saree? Like ashes growing on smoulders every night, they tell a story to mother, with moon as the witness. In those stories building a house of her liking; smearing the earth with cow dung to a door smooth as sandal, tying mango-leaf-hangings which would make a koel blush and drawing a patterned rangoli ‘come in mother!’ they said. How many moons heard those stories and called to witness they come every night. Mother who would go to sleep listening to these stories every night, in the morning 78

pitching a tent in the next village would dream of those stories again! (Inspired by a folktale told by Jungli Seeniah)

Midnight inside the hut; 79

on the plate the scrambling of a rat, what a chill in the stomach! (Inspired by a haiku by Buson Yosa)

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Before Unfurling Wings Truth is like the wild peacock it has no obligation towards us many alluring charms it has at the time of unfurling wings. It’s richness can’t be had in a single glance behind, in front beside above below inside, outside a truth beyond all these keeps flowing. You praise it, it won’t bow. Criticize it, it smiles.

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Our Children From city they came to forest holding Pepsi Cola bottles ‘Save forest!’ ‘Save city!’ they lectured endlessly. Our children who insisted on having those Pepsi Cola bottles catching the road to city became orphans.

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To Mother Earth I am not just a lump of jaggery mother a child full of dreams monstrous fleas have thronged drive them away with a kiss.

My People Rainclouds which appeared in summer heat.

You If I go on despising everyone what am I?

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Strategy There was a time when America was thought to be a land which had broken the walls of slavery and racism. A slave there thinking of the famine of the future in the field of the landlord saved a handful of grains; a pair of male and female animal and bird; for a future day. the sons of the landlord thinking that that concern of the slave was unfounded taking the job of saving everything now are stealing the best of all the lands. Their strategy is to create a famine in the future by hoarding in the present.

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Song of Life On the hot earth: the eye of cloud glances in fields, farms and plains: song of life. Half starved, bare bodied, in the hot eyes for the seething dreams: the song of life. The rotting love between the people, spreading root and sprouting: the song of life. Tree growing out of seed the climbers spreading to each tree and blooming flowers the song of life which wanders the entire forest.

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Power of Faith In places where we have respect things follow us orders get passed; people throng around like ants. This place is the witness that the man has lived. It is not that it is mine or those who believe me are great this is the power of faith.

Time I like the beedi to arrange money for beedi I must smoke the cigarette.

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Source of Fulfilment If people have faith in us then somebody’s cow gives milk and someone else’s ox tills our field. The field sows itself and stands full for harvest, they stretch their arms and distribute grains and fruits their faces radiate with fulfilment.

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First Step of Creation The master is a lame man who cannot even stand; by the morsel given by mother the first step of creation before the student could open his eyes seeing his masters defeat the master had won.

A Question of the Bowl A student goes to his guru and begs him to teach poetry. guru says: it’s beyond your ken, suddenly a thunderbolt strikes and the house of the guru is split into two. 88

The students who holds a bowl in the journey of life sings his folksongs ‘when god doesn’t protect that guru will’

Mud Lamp Ragi and paddy – while sprouting and growing stare at heaven; gathering the golden crown of harvest they bow to the ground.

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Drizzle Beneath the Palms Holding Water How to catch that far off moon? beyond all our rituals he has moved effortlessly for millions of years. A child lifts water in it’s palms; the moon that shines in it in a drizzle beneath the small hands Lanky neck stretches and without hesitation drinks every drop of the moon the child’s stomach turns into a sky. The stars caught with the moon stand above the tree someone’s sitting beneath it curly hair a faint smile on lips lips which have bloomed like the petals of a rose 90

underneath his feet beasts have played; like light twirled and thrown around it a fair of onlookers drums, cymbals, tamboori the festival of youth.

Jogi’s Question I was sitting in field; late dusk singing, a jogi entered the field wondering from that distance who it was ‘hoy!’ I cried. That, for the protection of my field could I simply let him enter my field? Jogi lifting his iconic tamboori asked a question: ‘Who is more shy, male or female?’ Standing in my field, he asks me a question! I took out the boomerang of speech and sticking an answer in it, threw: saying ‘female.’ I hadn’t expected at all but from that side an answer came, like forest rain which came without a sign like the flood which swallowed the village at midnight.

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He screamed back: ‘You are male how did you answer, female?’

Wisdom Till now no one has heard the sound of any woman speaking aloud in any epic or religion. The words of woman characters of Mahabharata sound like whispers caught under the shadows of religion. I understood Draupadi12 by the fact that she dreamt of Karna. If a woman roars aloud 12 Draupadi: the daughter of king Drupada and wife to all the five Pandavas. Karna – the son of Kunti, the mother of all the five Pandavas – is disowned by his mother, which ultimately results in him being a part of the Kaurava faction: the arch-rivals of Pandavas. 92

then the helm of power melts like candle, and kings and kingdoms flow towards villages, fields and farms. If we search history we get thousands of biographies like these. Politics has the guts to travel beyond religion and the puranas. For this reason, religion always fears politics. But still politics pretends as if it is the slave of religion. If religion has to become a pawn all this needs to be done – politics knows that.

Travellers who wander in the ruins of this history long to see this; and when they see, they are amazed.

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Breaching the Order of Face the Tail had Shook Between cultures histories objects letters religions parties politics the elephants and chariots which stand, and on their backs, glittering golden umbrellas. In its shadow people are wearing the costumes like the characters of some play. All around the celebratory show, the blind support of people who believe whatever they say as true. 94

In the faces of innocent people has appeared the lines of a poster of people with their hands stretching for the treasure inside the mirror. By unsheathing the sword alone can you become a king? does he have the formulae to safeguard people? Money, politics, education, religion can bring some kingly charm to people, isn’t it? King means light in front darkness behind the blood which flows in the constricted darkness this is a common thing for them. Freeing white pigeons in the day people who flung stones at them at night Their winning secret under their footprints has grown dense thus: make people believe what you say is true, if you can’t by talking about your mother make them forget theirs, victory is yours!

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Water and Fire A piece of roti for the hungry I stretch my hands, Oh God make my hands longer. To carry orphans lot of strength lot of life-force is needed. I’m not the sinner who kills the hen laying golden eggs. Let my long hands touch you alone 96

I’m the one cooked in the fires of orphan’s hunger. Has the rice cooked O Lord? Lift a grain and test my own self.13

Generation Why are wandering paths forked into a thousand? In the same paths, our great grandparents were searching for wet earth till the day they died; holding seeds in palms they would sow when it rained and sing the song of harvest. Far away, a roaring sea a land beyond that, there, price of gold for seeds. Though my grand father and grand mother knew this fact since the day they were born, they never tried to step into that land. 13 ‘One grain of rice is enough to know whether the rice is cooked or not’ A common practice in cooking which has become a popular folk idiom.

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Kallu Baana14 Desert heap of sand wherever you see the wind that blows is erasing the faces if you look back there is no trace of footsteps your walk is the path. Sun which burns hot on head, 14 Kallu Bana: Kallu Bana is the corpse of a diseased person, or of a person belonging to the lower caste, cast off in the wastelands as food for wild animals and birds

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sand turned to smoulders beneath feet, strengthless, I am dragging the legs eyes, dried up lakes; and sometimes, the shadows of vultures – how can I decide to be a corpse-to-be-cast-off15 on my own? Will the heart accept? I have to disappear from all these. But how? Birth, I shouldn’t have been born; in this land of faded colours; in the burning gut, the blood boils; in the pulse of nerve a colourless fair of speech and silence. All the Shudhodhanas and Mayadevis who embraced me whole in the looming darkness of terrible nights – this poetry is their first child.

The Saga of Drunkenness Politics is an art politician is a poet The infinite creation born of love the aim of politics; the efforts which thinks beyond self, that labour, its home. On the throne of power 15 Translation of Kallu Baana.

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drunkenness of pride welfare of people, the sacrificial lamb nation’s progress, daily beheaded. Centuries passing and centuries returning past future present, the wheel of politics turns like a compromise between earth and sky.

Reflection of Darkness Like the drop of poison hidden in the beauty of snake’s hood in the intoxication of drunkenness death is hiding The pleasure of drinking doesn’t kill me it kills the wife and children 10 0

bitten by the snake of drinking life’s ruined, come to dust Inside the dense bamboo growth the bird of poor peoples breath is caught. And inside the sweating eyes there is only the reflection of a moonless night.

Prison Song Since thousands of years with the sculpture of caste and creed who built life-tombs? Sweating from dawn to dusk burning their pyre of dream 10 1

who held the torch in the fire of their pain? Earth, sky, air and light our right, they laughed who were they who went on boasting, I’m superior, superior. Earth, water and natural strength its not ours, they cried who were they who went on suffering, feeling inferior and inferior. In the village, in the town and in the glorious country as the strength of creed is crying every mind is a prison house. Where is that guru’s home everyone’s native home which enters everyone’s life and which keeps growing like time?

The Song of Mother A lake is not just a lake it is the eye of the village. A lake is not just water 10 2

it is the granary of civilization. As the field overflows let our lives overflow but chasing away rain, and cutting forest filled the lake with silt. It is not the lake that’s covered it is our lives come to dust. Bearing with people and animals the mothers who take care of villages. If the heart of these mothers overflow the grains and the lentils fill with juice.

Afterword Kempavva 10 3

Avva Kempavva has opened her heart in her heart a cage-swallowed parrot flutters. 2 With the parrot inside she is speaking; like the sunflower field which looks at the sun in the morning. 3 Every line of her wrinkled skin is a path in a dense forest in the folds of that path the shadows of birds flying in flocks, in the dimple of the cheek the sound of the roar of the sea. 4 The legs have gotten down somewhere beneath the ground; the face, high up has disappeared somewhere in the skies. 5 Using her shoulders she is holding tight; from the never-drying well she has made me drink a handful of water. 6 My avva is the blue space which gives birth to stars, the drop of water which has curled tight its thousand arms.

Nagatihalli Ramesh 10 4

When disaster itself is holding his hands who can save him? These men and women, his friends who find hundreds of reasons to love to hate, pick from the bottom of their heart a reason. O god even you won’t save him he is the primal man who jumps out of the frame of your game. Even you are just an insect for him. Whether he will win or loose he’s one who has thrown the clothes of cause and effect. He has no taste for them now. He is the son who gives everything he has and runs to his mother; look at him in a state of nirvana. He is the swimmer who has fallen into the sea called compassion he has seen the mud grown dense turning into a pearl. Disaster is a golden fire-pit a rest-house for those who win divinity and still rise up. Standing in the hot golden cast of the rest-house he remembered his mother, and pulling his mother in his arms he himself became the mother. Around his soul, flowers have bloomed like the celebration of the young bird which has reached its home; he is now at peace, relaxed beyond pleasure and pain lies and betrayals….

One day in May 2006, I saw Nagatihalli Ramesh’s mother. Till then he had 10 5

created his mother’s world in me through his talk, songs and crying, and like unravelling all those pictures he showed her to me. There are very few people in this world who have hated women as much as I have done. Even as I sought them for consolation, love and tenderness, seeing their narrowness, guile and selfishness I have recoiled in horror. Ramesh’s mother Kempavva is someone who has reached a saintly state and has forgotten all sense of this and the other world. Giving off rice, clothes, jewellery, money for those in need and then standing with her hands outstretched, her figure has reminded me of Jesus Christ. Christ said, ‘let the wealth flow down from above.’ Avva, like Christ, is both a giver as well as a bhikshu. That she stands here as the very earth is a testament to man’s capacity to be transformed. From the time I have seen her, my old pictures have started blurring and my hate related diseases have started disappearing. With the above kind of diseases becoming common, the magical touch of mother’s fingers is the only cure for the modern world. A child who has lost mother’s love, even in the cosy confines of his house feels like one lost in a forest. In my journey from such a state towards one which promises love and tenderness, avva has haunted me like a huge explosion of awareness; to her, and to Rameshanna and Shobhaakka who opened up these possibilities, I am forever grateful. Phoenix Ravi

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Success Story of a Villager Nagatihalli Ramesh is a proper village lad. About two decades back he lost his way into the city of Bangalore like an orphaned calf. Though born into a well-to-do family, throughout his childhood he had to experience humiliation, inferiority and ridicule of people. He lost his father’s support even before he could come of age, and was shaped by the otherworldly-motherhood of his mother. Though initially neglected for his stammering, he overcame that through sheer effort and innate talent. He’s someone who has mastered the art of spell bounding people with speech. During the 80’s he won almost all the debating competitions in which he participated with the help of his exact logic and eloquent speech, tempered with great presence of mind. On the streets of the rich city he sold fruits and vegetables, and distributing newspaper to households, he built his life through his own efforts. In moments of great despair he slept on railway tracks to find the ultimate solace. As trains do not arrive on their scheduled time in our country, he survived. Later he graduated in science and journalism, found flourishing ground in the shade of kind-hearted men and grew into a tree. In the 90s to provide succour to the dreams and aspirations of village lads like him, he started a magazine called Spardha Prapancha, and in spite of all hindrances, has been running it for the past twelve years. He is the kind-hearted man who offers support and love to all those dreamy lads who, orphaned, stumble into the great doors of Bangalore. His life itself is a miraculous story. KY Narayanaswamy

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