|
Mrinal Pande is well known story writer, play writer
and journalist. these poems have been taken from _ In Their Own
Voice edited by ARLENER. K ZIDE.
HER HOME
Every day
Before the crow of the cock and the thud of the newspaper
In that no-man’s land between the law and the blood
The woman gives birth to her separate world.
The clay pots are her sons,
Clever and cheeky
The tongs clang their palms together on command
The matchstick immediately sputters into flame
While the brass pot bubbles over with curiosity
And the ladle slowly mashes the secret-filled greens.
That homebody, the hanging pot loves curling up
The rotund rolling pin rolls over laughing
Coiled up and irritable, chhichchirchhikk!
The narrow whisk prances around.
Here with a single calculated blow
The woman can behead four okra pods
Can slit open the heart of a bitter gourd
Then throwing a magic pinch of red chilli into cast-iron depths
She can create a smoking, spluttering hell.
Spotless, the radish stands like a gigantic exclamation point
Watches the woman sitting
With her back to the hard wall
And wonders, really,
How real is she?
(translated from Hindi by the author and Arlene Zide)
|
