THE LAND OF ‘*YAAZH’ {The LAND of LUTE/ LOOT}

By Deebachelvan Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

01
The sound of ‘Yaazh’(lute) rings, bruised and battered.
The hands that come to take away the land
drags off the lute, tear it and smash it.
“Let this lute break into pieces;
Or, better still, turn into ashes”.
Thus, with secret slogans
all and sundry arrive,
uproot the lute and throw it away.
The cups held in the hands of those who are
seated in those lined-up air-conditioned cushions
under the shade of those sky-piercing cut-outs
that hide all faces,
are filled to the brim with
Yaazh’s ashes.

In the city of Yaazh someone has hoisted another song
and they are gulping and munching the Yaazh,
its ashes and all.
All over the town, all over the land
many a broken yaazh are strewn
for the feet to stamp on them, ground them.
That evening
in the Land of Yaazh
they gobbled
the anguished moan of the nerves
tearing apart-
relishing and revelling.

02
With the children of the refugees
who know not their home lands
unaware of the Yaazh, dozing along the train tracks,
those who have been driven out of the
high-safety zones
remain on the streets
with no abodes of their own-
resembling the abandoned street-children

Are those trains to come again?
With wheels where blood and flesh are thickly stuck
are they to enter inside the zone
for finding their routes?
Are they to butcher again those hapless ones
who keep wandering for their land?
These children born on the railway-tracks
have seen no trains.
These children who have no house of their own
have never once smiled, you know…
And, everyday they smash and ground those
heavy rail-stones with their tender feet.

03
Our children have no toys in their hands
These children who are born in a life
that itself has turned into a
plaything
are holding tight rubbles and garbages
instead of toys
and they play tin-wastes
as substitute for Yaazh.
In the mornings
when others are yet to wake up
they come with garbage bags
in the corners of the city where all sorts of wastes
coming from all directions
overflow
they befriend the ‘Ilayaangal’
believing in the Wastes
and are being born and brought up
with Wastes.

The School-bags which they collect
from the wastes,
the pens with ink dried-up-
the heads of dolls -
Oh, how do they name them and ask for?
When these children, with the smell of wastes all over,
kiss, the nerves of Yaazh-heart burst and explode.


04
The walls that have shrouded the ashes -
Oh, will they break off due to the intense vibrations?
Again and again they attempt
to throw, not just stones but also torches
on these books,
to dig and stir the ashes
that are stuck on the shrunken and parched walls.
Just like our Land-
as an exhibit in every sense
our books remain, without being comprehended.
When we spread open these books
ashes spill over on all sides.
They steal away our ashes too.
In our books, with the pages changed
new tales are written and collected.

05
These ones too came along with burning torches.
They saw Syril Mathew and
Gamini Thisanayaka
swallowing the ash-oozing burnt books and languishing.
They saw in those countenances
the faces of Today’s Rulers.
With vengeful memories
they threw away those books.
They have no mind to leave those sorrow-struck mothers
writhing in pain, wailing for those books too,
butchered along with their off-springs.
Cruel hands keep stretching for ever
to tear to pieces the tales of
the ‘sons of soil’ of our Land
that keep whispering into our ears,
noiselessly.
That evening, all over the city of Yaazh
Our books torn to pieces kept floating in the air
And finally settled on the sea.

These tyrannous vultures keep hovering over,
Steadily circling
to kill our books.
They are all set to do all that they can
against our books too.

06
In the place where we had been chased away with guns and uniforms
Some others came and sat.
The documents that we have
are forcibly snatched and torn off
by the tyrannous hands.
And the new cool documents being brought
as substitutes
declare us aliens in our Land.
Not contented with having those
mammoth mountains
They ask share in our Land
and attempt to write in our archives
deep-rooted underneath our soil-
the *Arasa-Mara (Pipal Trees) tales of Buddha..

Buddha who is in deep meditation with eyes closed
Oh, how we wish him to have at least opened them
when our Land and people were being torched.
The idols of Buddha with their legs widespread
wearing military uniform
keep moving with their eyes tightly shut.
Buddha, the Unseeing,
your sons are roaming all over the street of Yaazh
with guns.
Their cruel hands are ever stretching
to divide our Land
and gobble the particles.

Oh You, the Sea, who has alighted here?
In the damaged and demolished abodes of
the inhabitants of this coastal land
tales of sorrow-filled time, unheard and unread,
lay stuck; embedded ;aplenty.
Alas, who have strewn all over our soil the seeds,
along with the roots too, of alien trees?
Our sea has been bruised to the core.
With the mouth of Yaazh brutally broken
it remains wordless as never before.
__________________

*Yazh – Lute
*Arasa Maram -Pipal Tree

PLEASE PRAY FOR MY LAND

By Deebachelvan Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Out of those hands
that come forth to slice and smash into fragments
the Land, fallen and steeped in sorrow
as the commands unfold -
Our land writhes in pain untold

When our hapless people are instructed
to get displaced yet again
the children turn terror-stricken and cry
feeling the soil with their tender hands.
The Land that used to turn damp and nourished
on a rainy day when the rivers flow kissing the soil
lies all scorched, parched and boiling.

We have nothing left
except despair and disappointment.

The burglars of broad-day-light tear into shreds
any Hope left.
Oh, how many hands assault the Land
again and again and again?
How many more laws are being written
to rob us of our Land?
Alas, what all shapes and forms lusting greedily
To loot the Land where we were born and brought up?

With all our strength gone
when we, betrayed and abandoned by all gods,
languish here feeding on sorrows and sufferings -
will you be kind enough to pray for my Land
-Oh, My Dear Unknown Friend…

Terribly anguished, ever languishing, the people
who keep running from pillar to post,
for retrieving the documents snatched away
of the lands forcibly seized,
have no words that could sprout into tender shoots.
The present climate when Time-the tyrant
that gobbles the dwellings
and unleash unending harassment on the people,
terrify us.
With all the promises and assurances for their
own piece of Land belied
and betrayed
People are being butchered along with their Land.

For our people, let down and betrayed -
For our children who cry for their
Lands , wandering in search of it -
For our own small dwelling -
Please do pray, My Dear Unknown Friend
The low-land is made all the more lower….
Along with the rivers
the Marudha’ trees too tremble,
squirm in anguish and sway, intensely restive.

The very personification of pain and sorrow – Oh, Mother
Your tears and the blood of your children
Gush forth, flooding this river.
Oh, my dear children of this low-land
Where at all can we go?
The Land still damp with Blood and Tears
is made all the more wet with unbearable sorrow


From street to street, village to village
town to town_
the too long and broad hands of those swindlers of soil
go all stretched and grabbing
Oh, please do continue to pray for our Land;
Won’t you?
___________________
November 2010

Note: In the low-lying areas of Rathinapuram where I live the State has Ordered more than 25 families living there to vacate and shift to some other place. The people living in Rathinapuram village which is located on the outskirts of Kilinochi town have been living here for ages and are the ‘sons of the soil’, so to say.

THE LAND OF *‘erukkalai’ flower

A POEM BY DEEBACHELVAN

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Are you listening to those voices that keep wandering
all over the ‘erukkalai land?
“Oh Mother, “Ever our Dear Mother Land!
_ So I can hear those words unleashed
rising up from the debris of tombs
that are smashed and broken

From the seed-pit filled up to the neck
with tears of a mammoth mass of humans,
blood oozes out.
Do you realize that you have killed but the Immortals?
Pieces of bones have popped up and
broken apart.
Hand over those smashed fragments of bones
and that of tombs.
So the Mothers wail, beating their chests.

Oh, I can hear it all

The ‘erukkalai’ saplings sprout aplenty

Our hands have no saplings
The coconut trees are not in a position
to give us saplings
Upon the land where the tender ones lie dead,
burnt beyond recognition,
gigantic trees stand with wounds all over.

The Mothers who were hoping against hope
that the tombs would bloom
refuse to believe that you have butchered the tombs too.
The Land that used to shine red figuratively,
with lights and lamps
Today, turn red literally with the blood
flowing out of tombs sliced and smashed

Wearing the erukkalai blossoms my beloved
surfaces out of those pits and approaches me.
In the roots of the erukkalai tree
my brother has spread his contenance.
The children have nothing
except erukkalai leaves to read and play.
“They are there, underneath the ground”_
so blabber the words of mother turned child.

This Great Land is turning into a land
of the erukkalai flower
Did you hear what those wandering underneath
speak?
Did you see their dreams and visions?
The more they are cut – the more bloom
the karthigai flowers

The lives wide-awake, unable to lie cease raging and sleep
keep wandering for ever.
In the butchered tombs the ever alive dream overflows
In the smashed bits and fragments
why have the erukkalai come to sprout?
They grow dense, intense
as our Dream
___________________

Image: The Memorial of the Dead in Kilinochi has been destroyed

*erukkalai : a shrub that grows aplenty in Cemetry/burial grounds

SORROW-FILLED SOIL

- Deebachelvan ----------------------------------------

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY LATHA RAMAKRISHNAN

01
Danisha, please don’t look at me and wave your hand!
Your face, the very personification of sorrow,
languishing for the Lost Land,
overflows as the defeat of people betrayed.
I can’t go past a great distance.
As they didn’t stop me on the way, just as usual,
I could see you.
Your voice which keeps sounding again and again
in this land of sorrow, Oh_
I just can’t listen to it.

The day of solution arrives.
Breaking open the thorny fence
You are going to enter into your own piece of land.
Come! let’s catch hold of those who greedily grab
and take away our land;
let’s shake their hands and retrieve ours.

Snakes and centipedes
surround your tent.
Danisha, will you teach me also to smile?

That I am a terrorist_
do you know Danisha?
They have passed the verdict that
because of this ‘terrorist’ the people’s safety is at stake.
But still, I will move along these streets.
For I long to see children like you
who remain suffering in this sorrow-filled soil.

Asking the people to get displaced again-
when the announcement came
Danisha said ‘no’ with tears in her eyes.
This Land has been taken by the king.
And the king who keeps munching the forests and soils
keeps flying straight above, hovering over this Land.
Without Land what are the children going to do?
The birds are yet to return.
This land with no guard lies in whose hand?
_children like Danish begin to enquire.


02
Once upon a time this Land belonged to us
and the children were very happy.
The militants kept vigil over it.

The Buddha who was the commander of the modern troops,
waged war.
And, climbing on the papal tree
when he was laying siege on this land
the king’s shadow was falling on people’s soil.
The king ate the temples,
The king drank the pond,
The king grazed the forests,
With legs of ashes
he visits our cities carrying a sword.

My face, branded as the face of the deadly killer
was photographed by them umpteen number of times,
from numerous angles.
All the words invariably give the same verdict as gift.
I am destroying my own self.

When this so-called terrorist arrived at the city in the night
his ears were so full of your voice
forcing your way through the landmines when you go
towards your piece of land
I too go along with you.
Danisha, for you and me they don’t even give a tent.
Neither you nor I have no idea
what a lovely house looks like.
With tents, bushes and weeds and the soil
we keep going
In this gloom-filled soil _
why the sorrow being so persistent?
______________________
Image: child Danisha of Poonagar.

THE BATTLEGROUND

o DEEBACHELVAN ----------------------------------------

(TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY LATHA RAMAKRISHNAN)

The dolls return to the barren Land
In the hands of all those who travel
in the bloated wagons,
In the big bags that they have
they carry their Land filled to the brim
_so the aged keep blabbering.

On the battleground the child’s doll
lies dead, badly mutilated.
The child which has forgotten to enquire
after its mother and father
who had been killed,
went in search of its doll
and has retrieved one half of it.

With a few pieces of ‘Tharapaal’
taking several ‘poovarasam’ twigs
the children keep their toy-houses closed
and remain inside.
In the toy-house with no walls nor partitions
Wind and dust and heat,
finding entry, have come to stay
As the illustration of Time.

For the homes of those dolls in the hands of children who,
hugging the soil with their hands and
bathing in the muddy water in the land
all soaked in the dampness of heavy downpour,
the War begins.

The children smell the odour of war-torn Land
where destructions abound.
The smell of the smoke of explosives piercing the heart
and pervading,
drinking the water saturated in poison, turning blue,
the children quench their hunger.

In the hands of children who kill their own selves
nothing but broken dolls remain.
In the Land turned poisonous, ravaged and devovoured by War,
for a place to squat the fight goes on.
_________________________
Picture: In Visuvamadu a doll lies in half, dead and gone.

THE PILLAR AND TOMBS SMASHED AND MADE TO FALL BY THOSE SECRET MURDERERS WHO DESTROY DREAMS

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

o DEEBACHELVAN ----------------------------------------

The Memorial Tower filled with the dreams of the Hungry One
has been smashed, uprooted and taken away
by the secret murderers who are all set to destroy dreams.
From that day onwards He keeps wandering along this street
with the fire of hunger raging in him

Those killers who fear even the tombs and so dig and destroy them
are moving around, all over this city.
Today I visited the Land of Hunger where dreams lay scattered;
were shattered, torn apart and taken away.

‘They are on the prowl to butcher our dreams’
-So the children are terrorized.

Blood is spread all over the place
“We just removed the tower”
say the murderers having changed their attires.
That which he had asked for
under the grip of all-pervading hunger
these annihilators of ethnic identity
try with all their might to demolish.
Smashing the light that was glowing there in deep hunger
they have thrown it aside.

On the same day when the burial grounds
within which raging souls unleashed are staying
were also ruined,
they attempted to kill an illumination.
The pillar and tombs that are felled and uprooted
appear as the cradles of their children.
Jerking them out of their sleep, causing them anguish
and butchering them, the killers have once again caused
untold sorrow to the hapless mothers.

Upon the pillar of He who remains in raging hunger
some birds have come to sit, that day.
With none allowed to light a lamp for Him
He has been betrayed and left abandoned by the terror-struck Time.

The fears so overpowering in you
steeped as you are in all your greedy enterprises
and the delirious frenzy to erase our identity
_ Of course he knows them all too well.

Don’t try to remove the lights and brightness of our streets
Oh, merciless murderers!
You might come across He who keeps wandering
with his body consumed by raging hunger.
From that day onwards He keeps wandering along this street
with the fire of hunger raging in Him
_____________
Thanks to ADHAVAN

DREAMLAND / LANDREAM

o Deebachelvan ----------------------------------------

(Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan)

01

In the land that ceases to be yours with the tents of the dead
drawing closer and burning
throughout the day we are getting drenched in incessant fire.
As we remain helpless not being able to chase off the ‘ilaiyaangal’
that come to sit on our food and shit
they divert the roads that go to our small square of lands
With the roads laid by us remain closed
fresh new roads lead us to new camps.

We have grown thin
Voices wail for land.

At a distance where we can see clearly, unfolds
the Land of Children.
Right in front of our eyes
they steal and snatch away the blossoms of
coconut trees
the tender shoots and leaves

The wagons that take away heaps of sand and stones
whiz past us.
We have withered acutely.


02

Again and again landmines sprout out of our soil
In the night when the moon fails to come
countless landmines have shot up.
Whether the landmine would grow into a tree and give us ripe fruits?
So children shoot at us questions during night.

For planes to fly and to land,
For the money-spinning mills and plants to open
we are being turned into refugees again and again.
The tyrants and looters like our soil so much.
Children cry to sleep on the land

For having been born in these villages
the children are made to stay
in the space so full of the hot sun
This camp keeps its entrance wide-opened for ever.


03

Leaving through the gates of the camp that has no army
with riffles, where at all we are to go?
In these camps and those camps
opened and shut, opened and shut
The ways to the land are doubly blocked.
As we remain prisoners caged in our own land
our piece of land lies so close to us.
Children who throw away their tri-cycles
stand in readiness with one foot set forth
These children who long to return to their homes
are not afraid of the shells or the gun-shots.
And they refuse to get into any vehicles.

In the dream land the shadow of ghosts tries to spread and capture.
The children’s Dream Land stands like a furnace
In full view of us all
when our ancestral land is being hauled
are we to cover and shut tight our children’s eyes?
______________
07.08.2010

Shanthapuram people in Image

THE GREAT LAND : WITH THE DANGER OF POWER EMBEDDED

o Deebachelvan ----------------------------------------

(Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan)

Inside the thickly grown weeds and bushes
the danger of power is lurking.
The mothers who caution their children not to go far
and play,
try to enclose the fence and lock the doors of their tents

The goods abandoned are strewn everywhere,
smashed beyond repair.
When at last reaching, lean, weak and broken
the first thing we want to do is to fall flat on the ground
and weep uncontrollably.
All over the Land nothing but Power,
Control and Capturing are being planted.
Our city which was once a beautiful land
is being re-molded now by plundering brains.
The children attempt to probe the dangers lying hidden
inside the bushes and weeds.

This looks like some alien land, not my own city.
The people who have landed here seem not to be mine.

Time had played hide-and-seek with us
and finally left us in the lurch.
In the barren land,
losing all our belongings, looted for ever,
our life which slowly rehabilitates itself
is languishing in the tins of detention camps.

In the camps
with bundles kept ever-ready
more and more people keep arriving.
Records, photographs buses – so in all,
running from pillar-to-post, spent out to the core_
and such other strains and constraints
await them with Sorrow overpowering.
After intense tortures
they cover them with tin-sheets.

The cows go past the place where the men
are plucking out the landmines.
Right from the spare parts of smashed cycles
we go searching for everything.
We crave all too acutely for a decent living.

From utensils left behind,
photographs and a lot more
we keep searching, over and over.
They bring things that don’t synchronize with this Land.
All over the Great Land so cruelly mutilated
plants sprout out of debris.
In the terrible environment where total annihilation
remain frozen
the children begin to smile.

_________________
13.10.2010

Courtesy: TheeraNadhi, April, 2010

THE PIECE OF LAND ON THE RIVER BANK WHERE MOTHER HAS RETURNED

o Deebachelvan ----------------------------------------

(Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan)

-------------------------------

in the field, so full of grass and weeds in the almost destroyed piece of land
Mother’s fatigue is set afire.
On a day when we felt that all gods have abandoned us
Mother remained in hunger with nothing to eat
In front of goddess Parasakthii the provider of each one’s piece of land.
Oh, why have goddess Parasakthi abandoned this piece of land
Lying on the river-bank?
Mother has given her word not to let know

anyone any of the tortures during her stay in the camp.

the birds of these river-bank
celebrate our homecoming
on a day when the river swelled and flooded
Mother had her overflowing in her palms.
Dragging me off and offering me its roots as hands
The river enabled me to climb ashore safely
In the closed down river-bank
The destroyed banks are not to be seen.
Beloved Mother’s blood shed for the Evergreen Dream
is all over the shores; wide-spread

in the ‘Noovel’ tree that has lost its branches
how can my sister tie the swing and play?
In the benign smile of my Mother, fondly caressing its ‘still alive’ roots
The tree pours down its shade transcending Time.

The children who used to collect the fruits fallen down,
crowding under the tree
are sadly missing.
Mother who searches for the walls
takes out the time-worn visas.
Elder brother’s image has long since ceased to be.

standing alive and erect yet
The Marudhaani tree and several ‘Poovarasu’ trees.
A Marudha tree stands there with its half shade intact.
Upon the traces of ashes a new tent has been erected.
The way Mither believes that sky’s wound
Would soon turn to be mere scar
So my little sister believes that our home would
grow once again
Once again songs sprout in the low-land.

With the watery regions and boundaries of dreams turning into nought
The thrown away palm-seeds have burst into nothing.
Our smiles keep calling back all those birds migrated from
The river-bank.
__________________________
09.05.2010, Rathinapuram, Kilinochi.

“My mother and younger sister were taken to the detention camp at the close of the Eelam war, on the 16th of May, last year. After completing the course of punishments for their alleged involvement in the war which was effected after almost one year they have returned to their piece of land on the 9th of May 2010.

Image: My tent in the low-land region of Rathinapuri it was built in September , seeking shelter from heavy rains..

WHOSE SKELETONS ARE THESE?

o Deebachelvan ----------------------------------------

(Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan)

The skeletons pushing the lid of toilet-pit and surfacing
were seen first by children.
Whose skeletons are these that have lost their lives and are wandering still?
Even in the wooden-planks with which the corpses were tied and so buried there lie incomprehensible notes.
In the dry palmyra leaves the words with sound torn apart are stuck
Mothers who search for the life in the hidden corners of those polythene bags which had been pressed and dumped inside those toilet-pits,
have gathered

in those cyanide tubes they have filled their last words and left
amidst those knots that were in those black threads tying the number-plates round the arm
the time of sorrow stays deep-rooted.
In two skeletons that wear just the pants of their uniform
The map of the Mother Land so mercilessly destroyed
Is sketched in lines.
In the bucket used to fetch water from the well
A mother has secured the eyes of her son
Why were the corpses hidden in the toilet-pit?

Pieces and particles of flesh yet to rot and wither
Peel off and scatter as the remains of a great grand dream.
In a skeleton that wears just the pants
A woman fervently seeks her husband’s ‘never to die’ smile.
In the skeleton that is clothed in a sari
The scratches too many and too deep
Are counted by one and all
in the skeleton that is stark naked
the children find their fathers and mothers.
The wounds and swellings that remain engraved on the polythenes
As identification marks
The mothers, the sight proving unbearable, feeling terrible
long to apply balm and provide cure
who are they who feel unduly elated dumping corpses into the toilets?

in the well which has been closed by the invaders
I see the smell of the tortured life
Emanating

In the well into which they climbed down and washed their hands
There are blood stains floating in the water- so says my mother.

And the heads of skeletons with deep torturous lines all over
Pressed together and closed all too taut amidst the rubbles of
Fortress-wall – even these the children saw first.
Why do skeletons keep surfacing?
in the city turning into skeleton
Please come with your palms covering the eyes of children
These are the skeletons of whom that we keep searching for?
___________________________
04.06.2010
Image: Gajani

Refugees’ Land of Sorrow

01.
In a street that moves off on a rainy day
Inside the tents that resemble pits dug
Why are the Palestenian children huddle in hiding?

on the day when the people were won over
As refugees
The refugee-children of all world
cry in one voice
on the day when boys hold the guns
all over the forest where the mothers wander carrying their baggage
one and all have been chased on some action

The way their houses were destroyed without a trace
The way the city was turned to rubbles
With its very face changed beyond recognition
These refugees would try to bear with it all
Their days are filled with anguished.

wanderingsagain and again carrying their bag and baggage
Not being able to walk several more meters or kilo-meters
These children sit down
These feet do not want to venture into
Forests or sea-shores where people never tread
The home where fire was on burning in the heart
For preparing food for children
is burnt by the raging fire of war.
The rows of refugees that kept on elongating in the city of gogad
banged against the mountains.

02.
For those buildings destroyed beyond repair
What for the Eelam children are entering?
The children of the Congo Republic come and stay in
Our tents at night
Into a piece of bread, for a cup of ‘kanji’
For a cup of water
The refugee-children all over the world
Cry in one voice
The State with dreams dismissed, divided and torn apart
and joint as one
the terrible misery of the refugees that time
has left behind forever to remain
the invader are busy probing, turning upside down
Whether a hell of a downpour or just a drizzle
these tents are unable to withstand
the aggressors who sever away all the dreams that sprout on the soil
and so kill the Land
are moving ahead on all directions
in great haste
There is no need for the chieftain of the aggressors
to teach the strategies of pilfering the ethnic shades and colours
Somalia’s bowls of Hunger were buried in Matalan.

Those who set out to squander the forests
Those who try to rob the well
Those who are all out to grab the land
Those who have left for destroying
The Rights
Invariably killed the children
At the very outset
The dream of refugees has turned all wet in children’s blood.

03
The way the people were driven away from their homelands
amidst the deluge of refugees’ sorrow-
On the day of celebration with full of power won over
the chieftain of the aggressors describe
as the forces marching ahead carrying gun in one hand
and Manuals of Human Rights in the other
And it was the very same Manuals that were taken along by the troops
that kept on chasing the hapless people
till the very end of life.
With life snatched away all of them
were uprooted from their native land
and turned into refugees.

All the children lie in the dust
holding the same kind of cups and bowls in their hands
And even the baggage that they carry along as an extended limb
they have to leave behind somewhere
When the invaders barge in with their troops
They hurl words worse than their bombs
Though tents and refugees fill to the brim the entire world
the refugees have learnt to smile.
The kids of Darfur with tents made of sticks
own worn-out lone slipper
and all torn shirts.
The troops that take with them condoms
during holidays bring to their chieftain female organs.

04
War is so humane as to
chase off the hapless people to somewhere faraway
With the debris and destructions of Iraq
the country keeps glowing still.People were chased away in Kashmir
People were forcibly sent out in Godhra
Displaced in Orissa
Sent away to valleys, mountains and woods
With the kids in Manipur
The kids of Darjeeling too began to destroy forests
Religion Sea and Woods and all keep chasing away the people
And they kill those who refuse to leave

The Victory Flag of the State that has retrieved Land from its people
fly high from the hands of refuges.
From all lands the world over
Refugees keep wandering on all days.
Oh, people are steadily being displaced from their dwelling places

_________________________________
June 20 : This poem is being published in commemoration of World Refugees’ Day.

A POEM IN TAMIL BY DEEBACHELVAN
TITLEDAGADHITH THUYARVELI
(Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan)

WHO IS THERE FOR US

Why are children being born
again and again
whenever we come across these children who,
turning terrorized on seeing
chaos around and shiver uncontrollably
our faces writhe and twist and smash
There are none to see their smile
There are none to listen to their words

In the city where that boy was strangulated for money
and crushed to death
In the street with his blood-stains all over
How can I wander in peace and gay abandon?
Oh, Mother, why have you given me birth in this morbid land?

None has an iota of kindness
I am conversing with
Faces full of blood and vengeance
On all my sidesman-eating wild animals wandering in
gay abandon
Oh Mother, why am I like the friend dragged away
by a bloody animal?
The children who suffer for want of
the Milk of Human Kindness
are going in front of me
The mothers who suffer for their children’s sake
talk to me
Oh Mother, why have you reared me
in this Morbid Land?
Those who drag away the children
can take me also just like that one fine night
no, none seems to speak about you and me?
They speak about their cups
Their houses
Their wagons alone
Oh Mother, why have you let me walk along
this vengeful Land?
What more I have to lose
to see the flowers?
Why am I still being chased
by the cruel time of guns piercing the heart ?
I wish to walk along a lane of this city on a peaceful night.
I long to go wandering in the illumination of lights
Without a care in the world.
Oh Mother, how looks a beautiful life?

The cravings and longings for happiness
turn into mere dreams
Time has taken a beating in all senseyou are still lying there under the scorching sun
being acutely burnt
Oh Mother, who is there for us?
____________________

04.06.2010

THANKS: ANANDHIPHOTOGRAPH:

TAKEN IN ALLAARAI DETENTION CAMP ON

A poem by Deebachelvan titled

எங்களுக்காய் யார் இருக்கிறார்கள்?

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SILHOUETTE OF MURDEROUS SCENES

01
The anguished voice of the boy, arising out of tortures,
who breathed his last being in the midst of gory murders
is being heard incessantly.

First they arrested one and all
Blindfolded some
Handcuffed some
Eventually all of them were blindfolded and handcuffed
They were made to stand in a row and were
dragged along the green lawn and withered leaves and weeds
with the too well known sounds of torture resounding

In the land where demonic scenes of murder,
of mammoth proportion, were staged
Strewing flowers upon blood
the little girl who has identified her father keeps waiting
Again the sky lay frozen on those very same days
Melting, it pours down
wailing so loudly.
The hands were tied at the back
The guns keep conducting enquiry.
The undivided land has turned all dark.

In the land overflowing with corpses
In the blood of the Dream broken to pieces
In the delirium of the grossly unjust turning victorious
the continuance of the terrible murders
that left an ethnic group
writhing in agony untold
unfolded.
That blood-shed had to flow outside
Those gory scenes had to surface
Those wails and screams couldn’t be suppressed
With tortures of the worst order the Great Land was
reverberating so horribly.
They were made to stay in the land which had turned
all red, drenched in blood
Made to stay in the land where the soil was so cruelly
mauled and mutilated
The rain, terror-struck cries all the more.

02
The attires of the troops turn greener still
They were honoured as troops that stand for the
honour of a nation;
honoured as ‘men in uniform’ who safeguard
the very humaneness;
As great lovers of guns they have retrieved many rusted ones.
From their ‘Smile of Arms’ the earth-quake of the ghosts’ dance
surface and move on.

They are the ones who fulfill the affectionate wish of the King
They are the ones who carry out the orders of the Generals
As the grand finale the troops feast the King and Generals
with blood-dripping flesh-pieces.
The General keeps on bloating further and further
The King too bloats more and more
The smile of the King too turns all bloated
The stars of the Generals keep bloating
The troops are fed with more and more devilish frenzy and so
grow on.

They are all eager to share the vile strategies of War
and the bare cruelties of Victory.
They are all too ready to explain any number of times
in minute details
about the genocide carried out
and the way they had butchered en masse
for achieving it.
As so valorous and brave-hearted
they are all eager to stand in front of the dead bodies
posing majestically
and to pile up the corpses in deep hollowness

03
The white flags have become spies hiding murder within
They acted in sharp readiness and immense eagerness to
shoot at whoever happened to come across
Those who surrendered were gifted away to murder
Those arrested were chosen for torture
After butchering
they had covered the children with white flags
After raping
they had shrouded the women too with white flags

They had turned into handcuffs, the shirts worn outside
and the shirts worn inside
With ropes filled with the evil designs of homicide
they had the hands tied.
As each one of them was looking on
they witnessed their blood flowing out of them;
witnessed their blood streaming down
into the very depths of the soil turned muddy,
all mixed with blood.
Dead bodies of all sorts were shown to them.

The troops trained to butcher and torture and to root out
do not feel it fit to end it all with just standing in front of the corpses
and sharing their victory
but, they lie in wait to carry out orders afresh for more annihilation.
They only want to go on elongating and the dreams of blood.

The troops carried out all kinds of activities to retrieve the Land.
The troops died in order to annihilate the people.
So the troops killed the people.
So the troops killed the militants.
So the King killed the Land.
With blood and flesh the King has built his palace.

04
What have you done to those eyes wherein
the fear of death remained frozen?
What have you done to those faces which keep agonizing,
looking at all the faces with their eyes so full
of miserable longing ?
What have you done to that boy who was caught all alone?
What have you done to that child which,
slipping from the hold, was left abandoned?
Why did the heavy boots come dangerously close?
Why did the demonic uniforms move dangerously close?
Why did the guns that are on a destruction spree
draw dangerously close?
Why did the dictates to finish off
hover so dangerously close?

The face of the boy, dying out of all too brutal tortures,
is still convulsing on all the Small Screens
Children keep hovering beneath the land.
______________________
19.05.2010

*Note: A Documentary on war-crimes comprising some more photographs showing
the way the Tamils were tortured and killed and information about the gory
scenes and incidents, including an interview of an Army commander giving
detailed account of the way the Army behaved in the final battle-zone has been
released recently in Channel 4 by Jonathan Miller.

A poem by Deebachelvan titled
கொலைக் காட்சிகளின் நிழல்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE GREEN SUN THAT LAY IN THE EAST

In that blood spread sandy land people
left only belatedly
The militant also, who stood extending the riffle till midnight
Began to lose his last ray of hope
The people were walking along the path of the dead
The sister who observed that smile still prevailed in Mullivaaikkaal
started leaving through the sorrow-flowing fingers
The sky began to darken in a big way.

Results which proved unbelievable to one and all
were surfacing.
Tears which none could bear flowed as a deluge.
With a wound so intense there was bleeding all over.

with the commands subsiding the appeals sank,.
The monstrously shared blood seeping through the white clothes
was deceiving one and all.
In the land which was always exploding and turning to ashes
You have left someone behind.
In the sorrow-filled battle-field where the souls wander
Someone was still fighting with all his might.
Someone had fought till the very end to save the ground.
When all the guns ceased to sound
When all were turned silent
What was left?
My dear sister, did you see the abandoned smile so ruthlessly killed?
What had befallen your Hope?
Did you ever believe that the fingers would break apart
and fall off?
The sand had shrouded and buried all the thirsts
and the hunger of dream.

They had laid the Sun there in an awkward position
In the field of life all the young ones lay, dead and gone
Did you see a mother lying there dead, hugging her children?
In the end why fire glowed and then it was all gloom there?
Why did the sky turn dark bringing heavy downpour?
What were the last words of the Man?
What was the sky telling by way of lamenting?
Why was the Great Land frozen to the core?
What for our cities were broken to pieces?
The last man has left somewhere.

With blood streaming under the bush
With the skull looted, the Green Sun was lying in the East.
The blood drenching everyone’s face all red, applied danger on all of them.
With an all too magnificent Dream which could never be wiped off
staying glued to the Great Land
the final moment of the ticking hearts stand lost and still
with the clock-hand broken irrevocably.
_________________
(May 18) (மே 18)

Thanks : PONGUTHAMIZH

A Poem in Tamil by Deepachelvan titled
கிழக்கில் கிடந்த பச்சை சூரியன்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SURRENDERED CHILD OF THE ARRESTED MOTHER

There lay many a countenance
in *Nandhik-Kadal
In cyanide cups
the children drank milk
The mothers with guns
went past carrying kids.

All the godowns of Mullivaaikaal
close down.
From there corpses and their children
surface and come.


With the Sea captured, the sand getting displaced
is hauled away by the Sea
The barbed wires welcome
wearing the faces of indivisible countries..


With the region released
turning into the air-conditioned rooms of Death,
in the songs of torture
the night keeps reverberating.
With the great land turning into burial ground
the refugee camps are fast approaching

The mother had been arrested
The child had surrendered.
The gun stands between the two.
The thorny wire spreads as the attire.
The dead bodies come to lie in one corner
of Nandhik-Kadal.
Sri Lanka finishes devovouring Eelam.
_____________________
17 May2009
Thanks: AMRUTHA, JUNE 2009

A Poem in tamil by Deebachelvan titled
கைது செய்யப்பட்ட தாயின் சரணடைந்த குழந்தை
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

The City Wandering Without Words

Death with a cruel face finishes
devouring the children
Along with a militant
twenty civilians around
were shot at and felled.
The house is plunged in a digit.

In the wrong estimation
those who celebrate Deaths and are startled,
turned anguished to the core seeing the
withered flowers of
the city wandering without words.
In the front page of the Journals
the tears of words remained brimming.
At the entrance of the Media office
that the sounding guns pursue,
the all too terrible caution of blood was heaped.

The remaining one who cries losing the corpses
with the coffins ever- ready
is lying inside.
The city remains dumbstruck.

All over the city which is laid under siege by flags
the last region of people’s defeat
is drawn.
The children
wearing the banned uniforms
are made to stand under the corpses
that keep falling down and scattering on all sides.

The city, all the while wandering without words,
finally hiding itself inside the coffin
the children carrying them
are wandering all over the city.
_________________
20.05.2009
Thanks : VADAKKU VAASAL

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
சொற்களற்றலைகிற நகரம்
Translated into English by latha Ramakrishnan

THE DREAM OF DEAR SISTER WHO HAS LOST ALL EYES

Dear sister who has lost even her second husband
whom she had bade farewell with the word to return
bringing to an end the war
Has sent word informing that she is still alive
With no answer my words keep wasting away
With voices that are laden with anguish
She keeps asking for her sights always
And she keeps searching for her children which
would always be playing in front of her

The scenes sabotaged and destroyed
are filling the soul to the brim
“I have lost all my eyes”-
So she goes on telling.
It was the shell that had snatched away the eyes which
uprooted her two girl-children.
It was when she was writhing in agony, sightless
that she was removed from the ground where
a deluge of people have
lost their eyes.
Her eyes were stolen
And she went on searching for her children and eyes
The blood of the scattered children
drenched even that spot where her wounded eyes lay

She had seen the great land in its final stage
steeped in the blood of children.
And she has returned unable to see her
Mother Land ever again.
Since the day taken away by the Sea
losing her dream she has been searching in vain for her world.
Bits and pieces of shells pervade all over her body
Dear Sister who has lost her eyes keeps on speaking about dreams
_________________________
Thanks: MARUPAADHI , Issue 03.

A Poem in Tamil By Deebachelvan titled
எல்லாக கண்களையும் இழந்த சகோதரியின் கனவு
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THOSE LOST ON THE WAY, ON THE LAST DAY

This day is miserably brimming with
the tales of lambs that have been lost on the way.

This Radio* is broadcasting the Programme which still keeps searching
for those who had lost their way.
Every mother laments in that Programme wailing
“Oh, how did you slip through my grip and fell off?...”
From that last day till date
your Mother** is searching for you**.
The shirt I have, in your memory,
How can that be advertised in any journal?
And, another page of an other journal keeps on writing
about the tales of those frozen bodies of those
who had been lost along the way
just the way the photographs had been lost.

Another journal keeps enquiring after those lost,
with so full of letters…
Bringing letters filled with words of great sorrow
each week keeps arriving

All these letters read just hope that they would all return.
How would have been the cry of the child that had slipped and fallen
turned silent?
How would have been the night of the little girl
slipped from the grip and disappeared once and for all?
How would have been the path of the lad who had been lost all alone?
What would be the pain of the mother who has lost her children?
What would be the direction of the wife separated from her husband?
How would be the anguish of those forced apart from their brothers?

The letters loaded with the sorrow of those who have been
separated from all near and dear ones
keep swelling and weighing the density of Separation.
With questions that have no answers
the night lies there completely shattered.

The wait and the hope that they would return keep growing.
With the paths where they had been lost shutting down
the letters that underline the lasting separation dumped deep down
and the sand is poured upon and spread even.
Unable to disclose that none has returned
the Night Programme of Radio melts into a close.
And, for a letter written by someone lost
filled with words of hope and happiness
Your Mother keeps on waiting…

______________________________
09.12.௨00௯ * SURIYAN F.M, ** Gajaanandh’s Mother, *** Gajanandh, *** Sudaroli Weekly**** Mithran Weekly

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled IRUDHI NAAL VAZHIYIL THOLAINDH POENAVARGAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE DECLARATION OF WAR PURSUING THE YEAR

All the years
scatter just the empty nights alone.
Just like the yester year when I didn’t meet you
nor shared anything with you
this year is
lying in wait to come at midnight
and wake me up.

On the day when it was declared in advance that
War would destroy our village
and bring our dream to an end
all that have been captured so far
are going to be displayed.

In the space where You and I are
so easily ignored
and where War is drawing near,
stands writhing in pain
Our house sans celebration.

You , Our Words
and all the Spaces where we are to be
sharing them in joyous togetherness.
are being devovoured by a creeping serpentine
all too quietly.
The year is pursued in a hot chase
by the Declaration of War with further wanderings and displacements.
_____________________
14.04.2009
(This poem is for recollecting the yester year)

A Poem of Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled வருடத்தை தொடருகிற போரின் பிரகடனம்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SECOND DIOLOGUE ON THE STORY OF ‘APPAM’

You would always be reminding and recollecting the first dialogue.
On that semi-wall where cigarette pieces would be
neatly piled up in one corner
we had ever and again conversed
umpteen number of times.
Each night had in the end
made us converse with each other.
Your leg which would be carrying the Appams
and the evening when the flour for that would be ground
we have indeed lost.
as a result of the War we have lost our very lives.

In the stream that stands next to the tea-shop where we used to smoke
rows after rows stand the sediment of ash.
In our city which had developed by leaps and bounds
we used to go wandering
relishing bear.
When holding our glasses aloft
We used to sit there and share our experiences of selling the edibles
our city was glowing in
an enchanting light.
We have toiled for our city.
We have held it close to our heart.
When we used to sit behind those shops
deep in conversation
when we were hiding there
fearing the terrible air-crafts
You were close by my side.

My dear Friend, we had always been those
getting a good thrashing for the sake of cigarettes.
Just like all other things
now, our beautiful city is not there
for you to shout and sell the edibles;
nor your tasty Appams
and the cigarettes;
nor the evening hours when you would be
grinding the flour.
But, as the mega dialogue of our intimacy,
the cigarette infinite
you keep simmering inside .
In that debris of the semi-wall what have the cigarette –pieces turned to?
The War has destroyed everything.
Oh, we should not have lost you.
With you we have lost everything.

When it is said that your dead body, lying abandoned
had been identified by somebody
your second course of dialogue about Appam
begins all alone and
goes on and on and on…
Where did you get lost?

I wont be returning to the all too shattered city.
Will there be someone calling out and selling ‘Appam’?
Who at all would be waiting to buy them?
Every cigarette I light keep
burning for you.
The cup filled with liquor for you
is always there in front of me
____________________
08.09.2009. That, my very close friend SriGajanath, who was my dearest pal, one who was closer than all the others hailing from the city of Kilinochi had caught in the vicious attack of the final battle and breathed his last and that they had seen his corpse they say. Even after searching all the Detention camps it was not found anywhere.

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled APPATHIN KADHAI PATTRIYA IRANDAAVADHU URAIYAADAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE MONUMENT WHERE DREAM HAD SPROUTED

They have fortressed the Monument with terror
not allowing anyone to approach it
the Mothers who have buried their children
keep saying that in those burial-grounds
dreams keep surfacing, being pushed out.

All the Mothers pay their homage
To the Monument Tower
Where Souls reside.

The Monument of immensely terrible hunger
with Dreams sprouted
was shockingly damaged on a night.
Who destroyed it?
Oh, why?
In that night which still remains a mystery
the anguish and sorrow of Dream overflows.

On that very same night when those men
stealthily coming
had dragged away the children
this Monument had been damaged.
When that child, searching for its parents
cried in agony unbearable
the lap that cradled his dreams
was cruelly attacked and destroyed.

Who at all could forget the face
filled with the great grand hunger of Dream
In our cups full of hunger the torn flesh, broken bones
and clothes of our children alone
come to be.

To say that we are being killed again and again
there are absolutely no other words.
In the city where the children dread
the prospect of coming out, stepping into the street
in the bones, broken to pieces and thrown away
the fear-filled blood of the kids is wide-spread.

Destroying a dream
and strangulating a child
cause the same unbearable sorrow.
The Mothers come and see
The hunger of Dhileepan burning in the heart still.

_________________
A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled

KANAVU ARUMBIYIRUNDHA NINAIVIDAM

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SAND WHERE WORDS TURN DECOMPOSED

I am listening
Please speak
As it proves impossible to share
the way Sorrow keeps pouring and overflowing
in the woods with no words
I swallow the words that keep breaking into two
and turning decomposed.
Don’t mind me.
Keep telling about yourself
In the Woods sans words
My ears get filled up with sand.

Except the noise
of shells falling down
planes roaring above
gun-shots going on everywhere-
Absolutely no other sound at all.
Your phone-call.
The sand-dam surfaces.

Except being alive
there is nothing else.
Even the life reduced to half
the words getting decomposed come
one by one.
Except one or two words of yours
being scattered by shells
I have got nothing.
The sandy floor begins to burn.

In the conversation that hangs suspended midway
The fear for your safety resurfaces
From the moment you had disconnected
I keep waiting for your words
after the terrible battle.

The hollow sand opens its mouth all too wide.
How long I would be swallowing
my words being decomposed,
hiding myself from you?
The phone remains there weighing heavy.
The sand stirs up and blows.
__________________
(May 2009)

A poem in Tamil from Deebachelvan titled
SORKALL SIDHAIGIRA MANAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER

In a solitary island they have confined you.
The Identification Number stamped on the back
remains stuck on the thorny fence.
The watch-towers atop the trees
are going past myself.
In the spaces where the wind keeps wandering
endless vacuum keeps swelling.
In the house built of thorny-wires
the cock writhes and moans.
With the sky melting and filling up the rice-pot
You stir up the Hope of
living for the sake of children.
Of those streets and lanes that you know not
I won’t be saying anything.
Time is going past us all too hurriedly.

The thorny-fence is worn round
the child’s person, as attire..
While I was coming through the green fields
the usual shrieks of unbearable torture could be heard.
Many a penis and vagina keep floating
in the Sea-Lake
The watch-towers have thronged the old bridge,
devovouring it.

Caught between Night and Day
You are crushed and torn apart.
The Identity-Card is hanging in my neck.
In the relief-food that has come after a long time
You calculate the Modern Economy.
In the house with no walls wherein dust enters
The colonial cities
are coming and installing themselves.
Words are there still.
You leave without saying something.
Your words are piled up in the emptied cartridges
of the shells that have dumped us here in a heap
are neatly kept in rows.
The poem that you are unable to write -
Please read it to me.
Words keep pouring down behind.

When the time allotted for me gets over
the noise of the cock comes to be.
Now I recollect once again
The Identification Number of Yours.
_____________
(May 2009 )

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
MUTKAMBIGALIL PADIGIRA ADAIYAALA ILAKKAM
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE DREAM OF ARULLAMMAA WHO HAS WADED THROUGH THE SORROW-STRUCK SPAN OF TIME

In the face-to-face session with this old lady
who has lost all her precious times
in incessant and irreparable destruction
Words have turned frozen.
The dream of life that lies dormant in her voices
and her hunger that remains
non-satiated
She keeps telling again and again

AruLlammaa who had escaped from dreadful moments and returned
has her eyes filled with God.
In the Land of immensely deep perils
they have brought her times in a chair.
Arullammaa’s ever elongating prayers
grow bigger than the size of God.
The dream for Life remains frozen in the words of Life
that has come to its close with nothing but disappointments.

The tales she has in store
laden with the cruel experiences of War
And her body that has refused to
explode and scatter into bits
Her long, full-fledged life that has
refused to be silenced
keep nurturing never-ending dreams.
The old lady who has defied the War
keeps sharing with the kids
the Great Tale of Colossal Destruction
Arullammaa is speaking to the children about nothing else
but the unrealized dreams
______________

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
THUYAR MIGUNDHA KAALATHI KADANDHA ARULLAMMAAVIN KANAVU
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

(Thanks: Pongu Thamizh)

THE GREAT LAND : WEARING ALL WOUNDS IT STANDS THERE SMILING

(A lot more news yet to be accessed lie there, buried deep in that Great Land)

Deaths that none have yet realized in full
Keep seeping on the seashore of Nandhi-Kadarkarai.
The cassettes that entwine all kinds of tortures in a long chain
The troops watch in their exclusive night Channels
as a great pastime.
In the great land captured by the accused and criminals
all that are desired are being carried out.


In the ground where men, holding tight their dreams
were so buried
they have planted the soldier who holds the gun
that reminds everything-
the soldier filled with venom and violence
keeps showing his gory face on all sides
of the Great Land

He keeps elaborating on his glorious tales
of defeating and annihilating the people of the land.
Splashing his victory song up above the sky
He drenches the whole land with it.
In the region where entry is prohibited to children
With Death oozing out and pervading
The demonic women having skeletons tied in their legs
keep performing their terrorizing dances.


Wherever the Emperor of the Song of Valour and Victory treads
Death and Blood are being felt.
With the voices murmuring and turning silent
everything is buried down under.
The soldier who is made to stand there by the Emperor
adorned by the garland of victory
Is busily giving out the tales of those fallen
and the ways in which they were made to fall
releasing their visuals in photographs

Wearing all wounds the Great Land stands there smiling.
_____________________
9.12.2009 (Thanks to Pongu Thamizh)

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled PERUNILAM: KAAYANGALAI ANINDHU PUNNAGAITHUK-KONDIRUKKIRADHU

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

WHAT DO THE CHILDREN WANT?

The children have got their wide range of responses
from the query of the Emperor.
In the street elongated in a maze
all the children entwining their hands, ask
what the children want
Listening to the query
The Emperor responds saying
that it is the Time being offered by Him.
With he saying further that
it is prosperous and so full of Liberty and Equality
the Children begin their queries
from the very words of the Emperor.

The Emperor has applied his smile of absolute power
on all the syllables and words
and he turns towards the children
the face that turns them terror-stricken.
In the book designed by his numerous brains that
exploits and swindles the world of children
He speaks of children and children alone.

He who had snatched away and plundered everything
from the hands of children
He who has shaped the monstrous Time
that has plunged the children in terrible gloom
declares that he is going to gift the prosperous Time
of Cruelties to the kids.
The children know everything.

The children do not want
that Power that shrouds everything
and allow them to rot
all the while scattering on all sides
a Smile
The children do not want
the aims and objectives that
devovouring one’s natural self
imprisons with all too evil schemes
The children do not want
those thoughts that have gifted Curses
and destroyed Histories
and have become so wide-spread
The Emperor keeps wounding
the children’s tender hearts
with his responses
and their eyes
with his smile.

________________________

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled

KUZHANDHAIGAL AASAIPADUVADHU ENNA?

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE BOY WOULD COME BACK

Just the way his mother believes
Just the way his father and brother believes
Let us also believe that he would come back.
But, where are those ways today?
It was with many children
many little boys
that he had disappeared.

My dear friend!
The whole stretch of the Great Land
has tasted defeat
with the blood of children everywhere.
In the elegies and obituary-notes being written
all too unexpectedly
I had to write one for him too.
Having to write elegies for kids and little ones
causes pain unbearable as a terrible Curse.
That your words were waiting for him, I know

You were searching some detention camp
and some prison
running from one to other.
Someone had seen
his torn pants.
That the shells would swallow children
and kill them
That boy knew very well.
Witnessing all the deaths taking place
right in front of him
He remained terrorized to the core.

Will our little ones smile again?
In the land where he was dissolved
Ii what hues and shades will the flowers bloom
Hence forth?
Oh, where would he have taken and preserved
His face and smile?

My dear friend!
Please keep the books for him.
Completing all his exercises and home-work
He would return to class.
That he would return, retrieving all that had been kept hidden
Let us also believe.
____________________________
(To Dharmegan who was killed in the War)
A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
ANDHACH CHIRUVAN THIRUMBI VARUVAAN
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE PAGE THAT WAS KEPT CLOSED FOR THE BLOODY DIOLOGUE

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled

RATHAM VADIGIRA URAIYAADALUKKAAI MOODAPATTIRUNDHA PAKKAM
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan
___________________
O1

Though I thought of
writing down in some form of note
the all too secret a call
that shuts all the doors real tight
I wrote and sent it in a brief sms
which would reach belatedly
and I wiped off
the blood streaming down my face
in utter secrecy

covering everything with the help of very thick ‘padangu’
I remain quiet, not revealing any of the
actions being initiated against me.

For three hours networking was closed.
Yet again I searched for
Real dense words.

That the drawings in our ancestral house
and the big bold words engraved there
are indeed very peace-loving
- so I have told them.
All the telephone-calls that came my way
I was sending back.

Hereafter nothing will be told to you
Through these Poems.
The dialogue that I had in that blood-sucked and dried-up carpet
The blood that flowed in the words and lost for ever
I have no intention of sharing any of those things.
This page wherein the explanation is to be given
remains empty.

02

My friend and Myself went on laughing
during all those
terrible words
we were throwing away the eyes
and the misery of defeat
that have come to spread upon our face
under the fence
and through the thorny wires
into the adjacent ‘Kaani’.
They were swallowing us
in a demonic speed.

The way the riffle piercing our face
tearing and engaging us in a diologue
sucking our blood
We won’t tell these to anyone.
That none threaten us
- so we have issued a statement on our own.

After the dialogue
for how long
these all too terrifying words
would be seeping behind this Motor-cycle.

That the actions initiated against me
proved so very sweet -
I had written on that late evening
at length in this page.
My friend and Myself
are not going to tell anything about the blocked website
That we have observed about Time proving
real sweet and great
for all things concerned –
so they hold about the bloody dialogue of that day.
-----------------------------------------------------
(25.11.2009)

YET AGAIN MOTHER HAS ANNOUNCED A DATE

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
AMMA MEELAVUM ORU THIGADHI ARIVITHIRUKKIRAAL
TRANSLATED into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

___________________
The dates marked in n the calendar having days utterly spent out
Are losing the hues and shades applied on them.
That arrangements are made for home-coming -
Mother has announced yet another date.
In the house of someone
Our food is being cooked.
On the evening of the day before when it was announced
that Mother’s application to leave was accepted
I bought and kept ready the rice and
vegetables.

Along the path where the rotten buses that have
long since completed their life-span
covered from head to food in dust
keep coming along
In a bus that refuses to move ahead
Mother comes
Tying tight her hair that is yet to grow
comes kid sister
This city is singing about their smile
that has been eaten away by the scorching Sun.
The paths of the city branch out
in different directions.
While bringing Mother along
who keeps on waiting
with the dates going past
holding the refugee-bags
verifying the landmarks
bearing the burdens of Time
the people of the Great Land keeps wandering.

That there is no home to return
nor any address for letters to reach -
Mother keeps saying.


As a wandering refugee with no home
Nor address
I bring the bag with my attires which was kept
in someone’s house
to another someone’s place.
Each and every house
Each and every street
turning into miserable refugees
we keep wandering.
While coming from one city to another
I am getting displaced again and again.
In the earthen pot of someone unknown
the lunch is getting ready.
Right from the heavy carry-bags
everything is sharing and distributing words.

In the city full of wandering refugees
Mother says that we would surely return home
and gives yet another date.
In the evening hours the dust-covered bus collects
the refugees
and sets out in the direction of
the detention camps.
______________
(From the city of Vavuniya – 16.02.2010)