The Show is On
The contrasting world you see is called complexity.
Adam is not with it, as much as with his colloquy.
At the rear of the non-stop reval clamour sounds like a chorus but,
if you listen with care you'll hear a sinister -sounding instrument harping upon our indigence and ignorance ---much as we harp upon our culture;
it transmutes the pleas from the outer world into an unlikely rhapsody.
Nothing is being born and yet you all continue harping in despite.
At such moments I feel I too had bettre relish,
colloquially,
the taste of being by taking a header for the lower rungs;
And from the formidable upper rungs I should much against my palate all the confounded tastes from versifying to vasectomy.
Whenever I sense so there rises forthwith the tail of a query or a cow.
After searching and shifting it were said the problems is ill-besieged,
the party the lone point of reference nor the people.
Therefore erasing the line between life and personal computations the sene has been shelved the one about sympathy,
about civility; goes on as it ever has.
If ever the curtain goes up I shall demonstrate my readiness;
if it never does I shall, like many another plead my growing incapacity to know,
to comprehend.
Translated from Hindi by Ajit Khullar
Secret
The Policeman had a dream
He was no longer a policeman Children surrounded him for candies And tied him up for a joke A girl came forward and still closer Grew into a dream woman Yet he could not free himself She reappeared to whisk the kids away As if they were her own.
When he relates the dream to fellow policemen
They guess the dream children may be themselves And the woman taking them to glory But the man who dreamed he wasn't a policeman Said the woman came again and clearly Was his own wife,
the children his too So am I the father of you men ?
The policemen all roared with laughter.
In a nearby cafe I sat sipping tea When a frightened hotel boy blurted out Hear what happened at the police station the police are roaring with laughter
The police are laughing at a policeman And the boy dropped dead The shot came from a tea-sipping Snack-eating man in my cafe
How dare you tell the secret !
Now I wonder whether it's morning yet And I out of reach of the dream Debate whether to tell someone or keep my dream secret.
Translated by Kusum Shukla and John O. Perry
The Scene
A man took away my word from me,
after having felt me all over.
My word must still be warm in his mouth.
This happened as the cat Was walking down the parapet,
Covered with glass shards, Holding a mouse between her jaws.
In the bush the cat Let go of the mouse.
Warm And soft And pulsating, the mouse form Walked a few paces And then broke into a run. And as soon as it ran,
the cat Pounced And carried the mouse Into another bush.
Above the bush,
the birds Kept up their flappings and screechings
The mouse had already lost Ground as big as the mouse.
Under the cat lay squeezed Ground as big as the cat,
But her shadow was larger And lay sprawled like a tiger's.
Once again I see the man coming towards me
And again he is eyeing me like another word.
Translated by Mrinal Pande
The contrasting world you see is called complexity.
Adam is not with it, as much as with his colloquy.
At the rear of the non-stop reval clamour sounds like a chorus but,
if you listen with care you'll hear a sinister -sounding instrument harping upon our indigence and ignorance ---much as we harp upon our culture;
it transmutes the pleas from the outer world into an unlikely rhapsody.
Nothing is being born and yet you all continue harping in despite.
At such moments I feel I too had bettre relish,
colloquially,
the taste of being by taking a header for the lower rungs;
And from the formidable upper rungs I should much against my palate all the confounded tastes from versifying to vasectomy.
Whenever I sense so there rises forthwith the tail of a query or a cow.
After searching and shifting it were said the problems is ill-besieged,
the party the lone point of reference nor the people.
Therefore erasing the line between life and personal computations the sene has been shelved the one about sympathy,
about civility; goes on as it ever has.
If ever the curtain goes up I shall demonstrate my readiness;
if it never does I shall, like many another plead my growing incapacity to know,
to comprehend.
Translated from Hindi by Ajit Khullar
Secret
The Policeman had a dream
He was no longer a policeman Children surrounded him for candies And tied him up for a joke A girl came forward and still closer Grew into a dream woman Yet he could not free himself She reappeared to whisk the kids away As if they were her own.
When he relates the dream to fellow policemen
They guess the dream children may be themselves And the woman taking them to glory But the man who dreamed he wasn't a policeman Said the woman came again and clearly Was his own wife,
the children his too So am I the father of you men ?
The policemen all roared with laughter.
In a nearby cafe I sat sipping tea When a frightened hotel boy blurted out Hear what happened at the police station the police are roaring with laughter
The police are laughing at a policeman And the boy dropped dead The shot came from a tea-sipping Snack-eating man in my cafe
How dare you tell the secret !
Now I wonder whether it's morning yet And I out of reach of the dream Debate whether to tell someone or keep my dream secret.
Translated by Kusum Shukla and John O. Perry
The Scene
A man took away my word from me,
after having felt me all over.
My word must still be warm in his mouth.
This happened as the cat Was walking down the parapet,
Covered with glass shards, Holding a mouse between her jaws.
In the bush the cat Let go of the mouse.
Warm And soft And pulsating, the mouse form Walked a few paces And then broke into a run. And as soon as it ran,
the cat Pounced And carried the mouse Into another bush.
Above the bush,
the birds Kept up their flappings and screechings
The mouse had already lost Ground as big as the mouse.
Under the cat lay squeezed Ground as big as the cat,
But her shadow was larger And lay sprawled like a tiger's.
Once again I see the man coming towards me
And again he is eyeing me like another word.
Translated by Mrinal Pande
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