ANANDHAPURAM: VALOUR POISONED AND BURNT

A poem in Thamizh by Deebachelvan titled
ANANDHAPURAM: NANJU PARUKKAPPATTU KARUKKAPPATTA VEERAM
[ஆனந்தபுரம் : நஞ்சு பருக்கப்பட்டு கருக்கப்பட்ட வீரம்]

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

In those days the Land was languishing; feeling forlorn; forsaken.
With children engaged in war in the battle-front
that lay under siege
mothers, brothers and all other dear and near ones
were terrorized by the impending danger of war.
Turning their very life into veritable fence
They stood firm on the ground.

Those dream-heroes adorned
the tales of victorious battles.
Kind face
Words drenched in love
The courage and valour of fighting for the people –
Everything was sucked out by deadly poison.
Thanks to those selfless and straight-forward warriors
Thanks to their dream-filled thoughts and ideas
the Great Land is wearing a grand wholesome green hue.

The trap that caught them
had all sorts of scheming strategies; technologies.
And they fought a long time to defeat them all.
The battle-front endangered by evil plans
darkening with the shadow of Death
went on warning, cautioning,
with its all consuming desire to
destroy the Dream

The birds were caught in the thorns and were
fluttering in vain; deep pain.
The children fell into the trenches and
were struggling to come out.
The soft little deer so pitiably entrapped
inside the killer-machines
were on the throes of death.

with the Land being stuck inside the trap
with cunning schemes hatched and inscribed
all the fences turning into terrible threats
keep wounding the flowers and enjoying it.
The forest where lives burn smelt acutely everywhere.

For children who had eaten dream
the dosage of poison has been increased.
.
The deadly poison poured on
and burnt the
courage and valour, nourished and raised
in dream-filled smile,
in those eyes
in the eyes and in its vision filled with ambition
in the intense desire for Independence_
is flowing out and
turning the land all drenched.

Blood had spread, stuck glued, dried up and darkened
in the bodies piled up in Aanandhapuram
with the poison-administered bodies the Great Land
turning poisonous
the courage and valour nourished so well
lay there scorched and scarred.

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THE BLOOD OF THE LAST LITTLE BOY

A poem by deepachelvan
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

In the eyes of those little boys that refuse to close
float scenes infinite of crimes.
In those mouths that remain open
trying to utter something till the very end
dying declarations, hidden, keep echoing.
Born in blood
and with the blood not getting dried up
all through their lives
but sticking and oozing all over the body-
with their limbs, torn to shreds by bullets and bombs,
falling apart
when the little boys of our land kept wandering
the ‘Ilaiyaangal’ relished their wounds,
having a real feast at their expense and
so made them cease to be.
When, in the full glare of everybody-
in the raging war against our Mother Land
when the children were sacrificed,
when they were weeping, looking at their mothers
the laps of those hapless mothers were
filled with blood.
From vaginas to babies -with everything smashed and torn
The root of our children’s soil was burnt.
The Weapons of War
went on a killing spree, inflicting wounds of the worst kind
and killing the children,
with a fine sense of Cruelty.
Plucking out the longing eyes and erasing their words-
the little boys were wiped out
without a trace.
when in the bitter war against little boys
they were wiped away, rooted out
the Eartyh turned deserted.
When the battalions that butcher the innocent children_
born as sons of the soil in the land being destroyed­­_
so systematically
sucking and relishing their blood,
made holes with the gun in the heart of
the last child of the land
and sucked his blood to their heart’s content
all the children had been felled.

கடைசிப் பாலகனின் இரத்தம்

THE CHILDREN WILL BREAK THE CANNONS

A poem in Thamizh by Deebachelvan titled
BEERANGIGALAI SIRUVARGAL MURIPPAARGAL
[பீரங்கிகளை சிறுவர்கள் முறிப்பார்கள்]

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Guns and Cannons are collected
for children.
What do the guns intend to do?
They might either turn terribly exhausted and
fall upon the ground.
Or, turning all the more sharpened
they would tear off the faces.

It is you who insists on turning revolution into a
Weapon.
It is you who throws open the Field
that brings forth resistance and rebellion.
When it proves beyond you to contain and do away with
the rebellion and revolution
and you start oppressing the people
Revolution gushes forth in the streaming blood.
From the Land where we remain singing the Hymn of Life
oh, you alien forces-
When will you leave?
Oh, when will you choose to remove the shadow of your
arrogant power
that shrouds our very Life?

When the aged ones feeling all spent out
go past Time - shrunk and huddled
the small boys would grow into full-fledged adults
and break those guns and cannons that you have
brought along.
The whole lot of generations of this Soil
are being annihilated by war.
Oh, when will all these annihilations cease to be?

When destruction is forced upon our children
When once again annihilation-spree commences
This land of decay would tremble and writhe in pain.
Yet, when cannons and guns would be brought
to this Land
the boys would break them all, for sure.

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THE LAND GNAWED AND EATEN BY THE VERMIN

A Poem in Thamizh by Deebachelvan titled
POOCHI ARITHUNNUM NILAM
[பூச்சி அரித்துண்ணும் நிலம்]

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

The worms and insects that had gnawed and eaten away the houses
Finished swallowing the dry-sticks along with the green trees
The giant vermin that keeps walking and wandering
on top of the ever multiplying worms and insects
devovours ‘Poovarasam’ trees and dance devilishly.
Lifting up the babies on the razor-edge of sharpened swords
they throw them up so high, playing merrily.

In dense nights they finish eating up the people
buried deep underneath the soil, with their dreams,
and go searching for the traces and rip them apart.
With the hues and shades that scatter off the vermins
the very colour of our Land has changed.

Hauling the dream so cruelly sabotaged
into a mammoth bundle
It goes away, rolling it along.
All the worms and insects go wandering
with hunger unleashed
and chop off Earth’s branches.
And the giant vermin
in full view of one and all
open all too wide its many a mouth
and gobble up the ancestral Land.

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THE LAND OF FIRE

A poem in Thamizh by Deebachelvan titled
THEEP-BOOMI [தீப்பூமி]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Rising against those horrible murders
swallowing fire-balls-
placing her very being at stake,
Senkodi danced in savage delirium.
When Power concealed everything
In order to burn the Power that had grown, blending with the
fire-proof Soil
She burnt her own self.
That day faraway too a woman
rising against killing and injustice
was consumed by fire along with the capital city.
Whenever the scepters gobble and swallow lives
She sets fire to save Mother Earth
and dance enraged.
The knives that slice, eyed one and all
The ropes that strangulate entwined everybody.
The mouths that swallow human race
stretched with every-burning hunger.
The emperors gave verdicts that extinguish life.
Casting aside kindness and mercy
they declared Death.
For the sake of boiling Land
Senkodi’s person burnt as fire-tree
and so she shook the branches.
The anklets exploded and scattered all over.
The drums thundered..
When she entered into Fire for the sake of Mother Earth
The Earth was set afire.
_______________________
*[To Senkodi]

*This poem is dedicated to the memory of Senkodi. But, this in no way glorifies suicide. STAY ON - STRIVE - SUCCEED

LANDLESS LIFE

A Poem in Thamizh by Deebachelvan titiled
NILAMATRA VAAZVU [நிலமற்ற வாழ்வு]

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

In the Land filled with the leaves of tree uprooted and thrown away
where none remains
in frozen-fall
the life full of dreams keeps perishing.
The birds with no branches to sit and rest
wander all over the sky destroyed.

In the trees made of sticks decayed
the Sun that jumps down in a leap moves on
with morbid wounds.

The wind keeps dragging life, lifting it high
and casting it away.
The children scratching pictures of oppression writ large on starving faces, with their nails
fill up the Spaces.

The Land keeps perishing.
The cruel birds that devovour the Land
merrily hunt the birds of the Land.
The land-birds with their wings burnt
have safely tugged the dream wholesome in time
and rich in history
inside the holes.

In this time when the rain and the sun
kept eating the land
life was contained in a bundle
hanging suspended in a rope torn apart from the land
and dangling in the air.

In the barren land the birds uprooted are wandering above
the withered leaves of the fallen tree wander below.

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THE GHOSTS BROUGHT TO THE EARTH

A POEM BY Deebachelvan in Thamizh titled
BOOMIKKU KONDU VARAPPATTA BOODHANGAL
[பூமிக்கு கொண்டு வரப்பட்ட பூதங்கள்]

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

In this life that dissolves us underneath
the feet of demons
losing the Sun
we have become the inhabitants of Dark Land.
Despite being destroyed
in totality
The demons are not prepared to leave us.
Grabbing our legs they topple us.

Though we have suffered defeat
in the war waged by the Demons
their hunger remains burning.
In the field where
blood and flesh-particles
decaying into corpses and growing with stench unbearable
the demons relished them and danced deliriously but yet
their hunger remains burning.
In order to offer us as sacrifice and so
anhnihilate us without a trace
the demons were brought to our Land.

Have you seen the Demons?
In the cups held in their hands
they have filled the eyes of children
and are happily eating them all.

The Demons wearing red badge in their neck
or wearing military uniform on their persons
are so covering their mortal bodies.
At those times when we had
playfully covered our children’s eyes
they tore apart our chests and sucked deep our blood.
The Demons that keep wandering,
feeling heady to the hilt with the drunken revelry of death
keep hanging there, suspended,
in the demolished buildings along the roads.
They drive wagons along our roads.
When we firmly cling to our life declaring that
we would never let go of life
even in the face of annihilation
the Demons too keep chasing us
declaring that they would never let go.

in our beloved Land where Demons are brought forth
nothing remains,
save mere skeletons with life fully sucked out.
Will our children live in an era
when they could gain back all things lost?
When will the Sun come to our Soil?

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THE DESERTED LAND OF THAMIZHSELVI

A poem in Thamizh by Deebachelvan titled
THAMIZHSELVIYIN YAARUMATRA NILAM
[தமிழ்ச்செல்வியின் யாருமற்ற நிலம்]

Translated into Thamizh by Latha Ramakrishnan

Thamizhselvi has a tent
She never looks back at those sand-beds and canal-banks
that are lost
She never looks at the withered memories
strewn along the streets.
She never looks for kindness or embrace of kinship
from anybody.
Earlier Thamizhselvi had a Mother.

Thamizhselvi has a ration-card.
She doesn’t have to run for relief-measures.
She is unable to carry the rice-bags
offered to her.
She is unable to bring those tin-sheets and
other accessories provided to her.
Earlier Thamizhselvi had a Father.

Earlier Thamizhselvi had two brothers.
Now she doesn’t feel like playing in the backyard
or in the courtyard of the house.
She doesn’t like dolls that close and open their eyes.
Earlier Thamizhselvi had several Dolls.

Earlier Thamizhselvi had a God.
Now she has no temples
nor any prayers.
She knows not boons and blessings.
Earlier Thamizhselvi had a beautiful World.
Now she has a deserted land where none lives on.

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thanks to kalki

STREETS THAT WE DARE NOT STEP INSIDE

Translation of Deebachelvan’s poem in Thamizh titled
ULL NUZHAIYA ANJUM THERUKKAL
[உள் நுழைய அஞ்சும் தெருக்கள்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan



01.
Streets that none dares to step inside
are aplenty in our city.
It was in a grand function that the military chains
blocking entry into the street
through which alone one can reach the city
were removed.

The street that stands all dilapidated
in the interior of the city retains still
signs of humans, living there once upon a time.

This street had always remained closed
since the time I was born.
Just the way I have lost all of my time
I have lost this street also.
Even in this prohibited street
I keep searching for children.
The tales that children read and turn terror-struck
I do read on the walls of this street.

What can I tell my father’s aged mother
who still clings to life with the hope of
visiting those lands that remain barred still,
waiting for the opportune time?

How have you understood her dream-filled great expectations
of stepping inside the house with bush grown dense
covering it on all sides?
She keeps lamenting that someone tells her to die
as an insane old woman.
From when onwards she began to wander?


With wounds I keep going along the street
in the interior of the city
where entry is allowed.
A boat with the name of the girl,
who bore the brunt of bomb and is sleeping
in the depths of sea, inscribed
stands there, detained.
I read her words dissolved in the sea
and the tales in between.
Streets where none can step in
are aplenty in our city.
The dilapidated city is giving out a real big warning.

02
Children fear the prospect of going along the streets.
Regarding those streets that remain closed and barred
my dear children have all the relevant details.
In those passages where the State Power is forever traveling
with a military van and its jarring sounds
these children dare not step inside and go to their schools.

No street of our Land stretches too long
for, that might end up in the dangerous barbed wires;
that might cause us bang against the board barring entry.
In the end
it might be discoursing endlessly of the methods of punishment.
One day they have thrown open the street
which we had never seen for years together.
Ending the penance for the street
undertaken during those days so full of
the cruelty of hunger
We have a look at the street.
They have left behind nothing save destructions.
Nothing except colossal damage they have left behind
for our street.
We dread the prospect of stepping inside this street
which is totally changed in the hands of destruction.
Not having the strength to fight against all kinds of injustices,
invasions and entrapments pursued with a soft approach-
not having any means of putting an end to them all
the life of the hapless old lady that keeps breathing
in days under siege
and surrounded on all sides by Power so cruel
keeps narrating within
the tales of the street.



03
The blood spread all over the streets has turned dry
and remain glued; embedded.
The lives killed in those streets
stay on, smashed and fragmented beyond recognition.
The dreamy slogans written along the stretch of those streets
have been stamped, crushed and bitterly broken.
You know the frozen tales of all that we have lost
for treading along this street.

Please allow those streets to open up
for these children to run and play.
We will surely clap for the streets thrown open
but, please open those streets closed down.
The children are terrorized with the thought that
the thief who steals and takes away the streets
is forever haunting and frequenting this region.

This city after the colossal destruction
has been abandoned by the invaders.
Those who capture the city
Those who capture the streets
Turn them into their fortresses and seize them off our hands.
Or, demolish them with no second thought.

Streets that none dares to step inside
are aplenty in our city.
Cities to which entry is still denied
are aplenty in our Land.

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THE ROOM THAT ISN’T

A poem in Thamizh by Deebachelvan titled
ILLAADHA ARAI[இல்லாத அறை]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Just the tender palm-leaf that had withered
without getting resurrected do I leave behind and go.
In all those bunker-like holes that had caved inside the walls
my dreams are filled to the brim.
Unusually the lizards fall down and creep away in great haste.
If you want let me also leave behind
cups with tea stains still damp;
dish-particles turned taut and dried up.
The cruel dangers that keep driving away the dream
indulge in revelry and celebration, drinking my yet to be dried blood.
The lizards carry the torn poems.
The residual fragment of the soap
are made wet by the water-drops oozing out of the pipe.
I wander in the room
that isn’t.
In the semi-portrait that stays glued to the wall
wherefrom remembrances removed-
ashes pour down.
From cabin created out of threats
the bird that has not come into life
goes off to the cruel field created by bullets; bombs.
To wipe my face that turns damp with bleeding dreams
Oh, there is none!

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THE HEARTH WHERE BABIES ARE BEING BAKED

A poem in Thamizh by Deepachelvan titled
SISUKKAL VEGUM ADUPPU
[சிசுக்கள் வேகும் அடுப்பு]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan


In the tent that keeps growing with reddish dust
in the town where the hearth is not lighted
the remaining two children too
unaware of feeding vessels kept on crying and
finally slept.
The Master of the house tied by the barbed-wire
eats the sin of war.
The Mistress carries along the tent of hunger
the sorrow of which is never to be washed away.
On the night when the uniforms and riffles
and the iron-caps
filled with the lines of rape fed on her
and satiated their hunger
the children went to sleep starving.
Killing the night-born babies
She buried them in the burning hearth.
Severing the umbilical chord
she smashed the uterus.
With blood flowing
she lay in the bloody-tent.
The children slept off without hunger.

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CHILDREN OF WAR

A poem by Deepachelvan in Thamizh titled POERIN KUZHANDHAIGAL
[போரின் குழந்தைகள்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

These children carry along a cane or some wooden-pieces.
They go in search of some pits or bushes.
The stones that they throw
land at a great distance.
For bleeding
they mix kumkum or some ‘paper flowers’ in water, apply it on themselves and lie there tying worn-out and ragged saris.
In the coconut-trees at the corners of agricultural fields
Tender coconuts have once again come to be.

In the region of those people displaced and chased away
none returned.
Taking their cycles Loordhamma and Abiraj
go along all the streets and lanes.
Lotuses have bloomed in the pond at Konaa.

Loordhammaa’s eyes turn blood-red.
Abiraji’s hands have become hardened.
When they think of playing hide-and-seek
the bunkers lie close by.
The tents sway, unable to bear the words of kids.
At times the children succeed in dismantling the tents

Loordhamma goes,
seeing those who get into the agricultural fields.
In the eyes of Abiraaj who lights the lamp in Chinnakoil
the tortures of those chill nights kept burning.
The guns entrusted in the hands of Loordhamma
were snatched away.
The shells that Abiraaj had were also taken away.

For having a count of the bullets,
for identifying bombs,
for placing books in empty cartridges,
for carrying the landmines and throwing them at the backyard
these kids are well accustomed.

Not to tread into some roads and streets that with their name-boards in Sinhala threaten you not to dare-
not to go anywhere near those houses enclosed with tall fences-
these children are severely cautioned.
Raising the wick of the hurricane lamp
these children carry the ‘kuppi’ lamps in their hands.

In the streets along which Loordhamma had been dragged away the Landmines lie hidden now.
In the fields where Abhiraaj hid himself, dangerous words
are written that keep you out.

With those who dragged away Loordhammaa and Abhiraaj
wandering in the streets once again
those who went in rows, waving, have been wiped off the Land.

In the land that has turned red with the blood of people
there is nothing for children save the particles
and fragments of bombs and bullets.
In front of everything the children keep going.

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THE RAGING WIND OF THE LAND OF BLOODY-SEA

A poem by Deepachelvan in Thamizh titled
KURUDHIK-KADAL NILATHIN PERUNGKAATRU
[குருதிக்கடல் நிலத்தின் பெருங்காற்று ]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan


The blood that had poured into the sea of the great land
remains tagnant in the salt-pans
In those days with bombs thundering and smoke rising
when life was wasting away
Vezhini’s father
lay frozen in the salt-pans with the life flown out
In Vezhi’s eyes remain
the sweats and the bloods that move over
the salt-pans.

The blood flown for the sake of Land
sticks without getting dried.
The hands that steal the Land
pricks Vezhi’s eyes.
That day, for the sake of our Land
in this same street when those bullet borne, bomb borne
were moving on
blood overflowed.

Today in our Land
hands too cruel have grown.
The nails of those hands that haul the Land
keep growing in the salt-pan sea-land
and prick the eyes and face.

In posts where our flag was flying high that day
now flies the terrible sorrow of our Land.
In the prop of the one who carried along the bomb
different tales are written.
The words which have grown in salt-pans
and are lying alive still, writhing in pain
are uprooted.

The hands that have hauled and gobbled the Land
are forever terrorizing those going along the street.
In the bloody-fields of dream pervades the fragrance of life.
In the salt-pans, again and again
crop up the countenances of those bullet borne; bomb borne.

Unable to bear the enslavement of this Land
Vezhini is pained to the core.
The raging salty wind of the Land of the bloody sea
that fills the ears forever
keeps screaming the stories of those bullet borne; bomb borne.


o