Wanted Father

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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)

నాన్న కావాలి …

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నాన్నా! ఒక్కసారి నిన్ను తల్చుకుని గర్వపడనివ్వు

మరణించేలోగా…

నిన్ను గుర్తు తెచ్చుకోబోతే

అమ్మజుట్టుని బలంగాఈడ్చుకెళ్ళిన నీ చేతులు కన్పిస్తాయి.

నా పీకమీద నీ పాద ముద్ర పచ్చబొట్టులా చెరగకుంది.

తెలియకుండానే అర్థించిన పసి అరచేతుల జతలు

బాల్యపు దుఃఖాన్ని అదిమిపెట్టాయి.

నాన్నా! నాకొక్కసారి నిన్ను ఇష్టపడాలని ఉంది మరణించేలోగా.

నువ్వు జ్ఞప్తికిరాబోతే

అర్థరాత్రి నిద్రకళ్ళకి నీ తాగుబోతుప్రేలాపనావాదాలు

స్వప్నంలోనూ జడిపిస్తాయి.

రచ్చకెక్కి మరీ రభసచేసుకున్ననీ బ్రతుకు

నన్ను నిలువునా వణికిస్తుంది.

చెంపదెబ్బలకి మొద్దుబారిపోయిన చెక్కిళ్ళు

అశ్రుధారల్ని గుండెకుసైతం స్పర్శ తెలీకుండా చేసాయి.

నీకై మనసారా వ్యధపడాలనుంది.

ఏటెల్లకాలమూ నీమాటలు కొరడాలనుకున్నావు.

ఎప్పుడూ నలుసుల్ని తొక్కిపెట్టిన చెప్పు తెగదనుకున్నావు.

ఇప్పుడు నీ కాళ్ళకీ చేతులకీ ఆసరా కావాల్సొచ్చింది.

మనసుకి ఇప్పుడు మమతానురాగాలు ఆవశ్యకమయ్యాయి.

పిల్లలంతా ఇప్పటికిప్పుడు పితృప్రేమాంకితులయిపోవాలి.

భార్య గుండెమంటలార్పుకుని, పడీ లేచీ, సేవలందించాలి.

నాన్నా! సహజంగా ప్రేమించాలనుంది నిన్ను మరణించేలోగా.

అన్నయ్య చెడ్డీలు మార్చి మురిపెంగా చూసేవు, నిజమే.

ఏడాదికొక్కసారి భోగి స్నానం

ముగ్గురికీ మనఃస్ఫూర్తిగానే చేయించావు

ఫైవ్ స్టార్ చాక్లెట్టు ప్రేమపూతతో చెల్లిని

బాగానే నీ పార్టీలో చేర్చుకున్నావు.

నాన్నంటే—

పిల్లలకి జీవితాన్నివ్వాలనీ

నాన్నంటే

అమ్మకి సరికొత్త ఆభరణమనీ

నాన్నంటే

ఒక భద్రతా నిర్వచనమనీ

నీ కసలు తెలీనేలేదే!?!

నాన్నా ! నువ్వు మరణించేలోగా

నిన్ను చూసి నేను గొప్పగా గర్వించాలనుంది.

నాన్నా! నేను మరణించేలోగా

నిన్ను దక్కించుకోవాలనుంది.

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20.7.1992

కె. గీత

“ద్రవభాష” కవితా సంకలనం నుండి.

The Last Touch

My last respects to the feet visible on the funeral bed

This touch is the last memory of Daddy for all his life.

***

Daddy! Daddy!!

Did your sins agonize?

Or your telltale hand on mother’s neck torment you as wounds?

Ineluctable throes

Before heart rests or life ceases!

How moving was your wailing unable to endure, as

You substituted the voice failed three years hence, with your fingers !!

Whenever tears well up for you….

Your keeping guard dozing outside the rest room

Boxing my back when I did not heed your word,

My sister and I playing merry-go-round with your hands, and

the cracking of our bones as you removed the body-pack, once a year, for Pongal, …

Are the few, little , hazy memories that flash in my memory-scape.

Whenever mother’s eyes filled with tears

I felt like burning you with petrol

But strangely, yesterday, I wished you were rather alive.

Forsaking your duties

Living only for yourself

What did you achieve?

Extreme pleasure…

And extreme grief.

You became a specimen for people … how not to be

And couldn’t be a coveted figure in any heart.

Didn’t I tell you that you will be relieved and everything would be alright?

Being aware that death is the only cure for you,

I told you to buck up and not to worry.

How can I forget, when can I forget

Those eyelids eagerly searching for me in the last hour?

Your pangs entreating to hold your hand?

You were a devil that put my mother to every hardship.

You were a father who no one would ever like,

But Yet, I felt a part of me had burnt to ashes.

When brother called ‘Daddy!’ into your corporal ear

I had an urge to shake you up and take you back home.

As the filing logs concealed your hands and bosom

I felt like crying you can’t bear that burden.

When I mercilessly awaited your skull to incinerate in the raging pyre,

The grief piled up to heart’s brim, had ultimately burst out.

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-Transalated by NSR Murthy

Original Poem "చివరి స్పర్శ" by K.Geeta

Wanted Father

Father!

Let me pride on you thinking about you for once.

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 ebriated babble and bluster.

Your troubled life seeking after justice

Shivers me in my shoes.

My cheeks numbed with your slaps

Fail to convey the sense of tears rolling to the heart.

I yearn to wail heartily for you

You thought you could whip with your words for ever.

The leather you suppressed the siblings with

Would never give in.

But, the same hands and legs

Badly seek a support now and

Your soul craves for a touch of love and affection.

All of a sudden you expect

Your children 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 new kids wear.

And once in a while, say, for BHOGI

You bathed us three children.

True!

By icing your love with five-star chocolates

You converted my sis to your way.

But

You haven’t learnt

What a father be like.

He must give life to his children,

Be a splendid ornament to my mother,

And 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

The Night when Train deceived It

Night secretly crawls over the rails.

When serenity suddenly rams into the crowds

Thousands of tombs come up in a tick.

The link to the dream- about-to-begin snaps.

And the voice that reverberated through the compartment

Assumes a sudden silence.

The hand that was turning a page or a paper till then

Recedes leaving no trace of itself.

And the night in no time becomes all a pell-mell.

Hardships and tears,

Fantasies and festivities,

Despairs and despicables, and et al

The train strongly hugs to its steely heart.

For some, the life’s script ends abruptly,

The corporal frames assume cadaverous looks,

And as for the severed limbs separated from source,

Bodies can never collect,

Nor can the train bring back to life, once done with.

Hapless signals stare helplessly,

Scraps of rails wail their heart out mutely,

The night continues to crawl restlessly

And as pitilessly.

.................

Translated by N.S.Murthy

Swish of a Sword

To speak about poetry is as difficult

As to wake up one feigning sleep.

How densely the poets condense their spirit in time!

Whenever you recollect them

They overwhelm their subjects like tides.

“Chalam’s “Savitri” came to life, perhaps,

Not out of his pen but of his voice.

Even poetry becomes poetry

Only when it swells out of its source

Unable to stay silent any longer.

For a poet to dream about poetry every hour

Is like conferring a ‘Laureate’ on him.

How wholly it churns the heart, poetry!

To pass the grace of words

Over the dancing eyelids

In tune with the corrugated movements of the brow

Jumping over the barrage of heart

‘Tributary’ing sonorously into the ears…

To swish the sword of poetry endlessly

From the dense cumulus clouds of heart

To the dried up terrains of men…

To feel poetry as easily as one speaks ..

And to recreate it as happily time and again…

Well! Can a poet’s heart ever turn to a desert?

Will his pen ever stop even if his clock stops?

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Translated by N.S.Murthy