THE SAME THORNYBARBED WIRES, THE SAME NIGHTMARES

A poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil titled
ADHE MUTKAMBIGAL ADHE BAYANKARAM
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

_____________________________________
All Announcements are over.
The News and the Images have
made one and all believe.
Inside the same thorny barbed wires
My Mother’s face remains
withered and shrunken.
Younger sister’s hair has not yet grown.
Between us the same thorny-knots
That insist on wounding with a vengeance
My Mother’s too rare a smile.
They keep on tearing apart
the book in my little sister’s hands.
For my sake Mother had come
Carrying ‘Pittu’
The boundaries of Long Wait,
The dream of returning Home,
The hope of going back to the City-
Mother has inserted them all
in those thorny barbed wires.
In the night when ‘Nulumbugal’
Take away the tent
with bulbs fixed on the thorny fence
in the same tent that has
ceased to be one
folding her legs
My Mother huddles.
My Mother’s request for permission
to go to the shop in the distant city
has been rejected.
At the entrance
which allows not to go closer
and embrace
It is written that the
doors of the Detention Camps
had long since thrown open.
And, the Thanks offered profusely
in the Dailies and Journals
for opening the doors of the
Detention Camps
are being ready by many,
including my own self.
Of the thorny barbed wires
we have spoken
iquite a lot indeed.
All announcements and
uprisings are over.
Inside those fences
surrounded by those thorny
barbed wires
that we’ve been speaking all along
I saw children playing.
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(02.01.2010)