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Father!
Let me pride thinking of you for once, before you die.
When I strain to figure you out
Your hands dragging my mother
Catching her by hair come to mind.
And the stamp of your foot on my neck
Still stands like a tattoo.
My childy little hands
That pleaded you unknowingly
Still grip those childhood nightmares.
.
Father!
I just long to like you before I die.
When you flash in my memory
Even the dozy eyelids at midnight
Open with fright shedding deep slumber
Recalling your inebriated babble and bluster.
Your troubled life seeking after justice
Shivers me in my shoes.
My cheeks benumbed by your slaps
Have made my heart insensitive to tears.
.
I yearn to wail heartily for you.
.
You thought your words work like whip for ever…
Thought that the leather you suppressed the siblings with
Would never give in…
Now, the same hands and legs badly seek a support, and
Your soul craves for the touch of love and affection.
All of a sudden you expect
Your children to discharge their filial piety,
And the wife to forget all her heart-aches
And condescend to serve.
.
Father!
I want to love you instinctively before I die.
True!
You pampered my brother
Buying him and changing his kids wear.
And once in a while, say, for BHOGI*
You bathed us three children with flair.
True!
By icing your love with five-star chocolates
You converted my younger sis to your way.
But
Never were you aware
That a father should give life to his children,
That a father is a splendid ornament to their mother,
That a father is a paradigm of reassurance.
.
Father!
I want to talk proud of you before you die.
.
Father!
I want to reclaim you before I die.
- Translated by N.S.Murthy
*BHOGI: Is a festival celebrated (mostly) in South India on the eve of Sun resuming his northward journey touching Tropic of Capricorn, by entering constellation Capricorn (celebrated variously as Pongal / Makara Sankranti etc.,
(Original Poem by K.గీత)
