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