By Deebachelvan Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan01
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
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