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.

0