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.