WHO IS THERE FOR US

Why are children being born
again and again
whenever we come across these children who,
turning terrorized on seeing
chaos around and shiver uncontrollably
our faces writhe and twist and smash
There are none to see their smile
There are none to listen to their words

In the city where that boy was strangulated for money
and crushed to death
In the street with his blood-stains all over
How can I wander in peace and gay abandon?
Oh, Mother, why have you given me birth in this morbid land?

None has an iota of kindness
I am conversing with
Faces full of blood and vengeance
On all my sidesman-eating wild animals wandering in
gay abandon
Oh Mother, why am I like the friend dragged away
by a bloody animal?
The children who suffer for want of
the Milk of Human Kindness
are going in front of me
The mothers who suffer for their children’s sake
talk to me
Oh Mother, why have you reared me
in this Morbid Land?
Those who drag away the children
can take me also just like that one fine night
no, none seems to speak about you and me?
They speak about their cups
Their houses
Their wagons alone
Oh Mother, why have you let me walk along
this vengeful Land?
What more I have to lose
to see the flowers?
Why am I still being chased
by the cruel time of guns piercing the heart ?
I wish to walk along a lane of this city on a peaceful night.
I long to go wandering in the illumination of lights
Without a care in the world.
Oh Mother, how looks a beautiful life?

The cravings and longings for happiness
turn into mere dreams
Time has taken a beating in all senseyou are still lying there under the scorching sun
being acutely burnt
Oh Mother, who is there for us?
____________________

04.06.2010

THANKS: ANANDHIPHOTOGRAPH:

TAKEN IN ALLAARAI DETENTION CAMP ON

A poem by Deebachelvan titled

எங்களுக்காய் யார் இருக்கிறார்கள்?

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SILHOUETTE OF MURDEROUS SCENES

01
The anguished voice of the boy, arising out of tortures,
who breathed his last being in the midst of gory murders
is being heard incessantly.

First they arrested one and all
Blindfolded some
Handcuffed some
Eventually all of them were blindfolded and handcuffed
They were made to stand in a row and were
dragged along the green lawn and withered leaves and weeds
with the too well known sounds of torture resounding

In the land where demonic scenes of murder,
of mammoth proportion, were staged
Strewing flowers upon blood
the little girl who has identified her father keeps waiting
Again the sky lay frozen on those very same days
Melting, it pours down
wailing so loudly.
The hands were tied at the back
The guns keep conducting enquiry.
The undivided land has turned all dark.

In the land overflowing with corpses
In the blood of the Dream broken to pieces
In the delirium of the grossly unjust turning victorious
the continuance of the terrible murders
that left an ethnic group
writhing in agony untold
unfolded.
That blood-shed had to flow outside
Those gory scenes had to surface
Those wails and screams couldn’t be suppressed
With tortures of the worst order the Great Land was
reverberating so horribly.
They were made to stay in the land which had turned
all red, drenched in blood
Made to stay in the land where the soil was so cruelly
mauled and mutilated
The rain, terror-struck cries all the more.

02
The attires of the troops turn greener still
They were honoured as troops that stand for the
honour of a nation;
honoured as ‘men in uniform’ who safeguard
the very humaneness;
As great lovers of guns they have retrieved many rusted ones.
From their ‘Smile of Arms’ the earth-quake of the ghosts’ dance
surface and move on.

They are the ones who fulfill the affectionate wish of the King
They are the ones who carry out the orders of the Generals
As the grand finale the troops feast the King and Generals
with blood-dripping flesh-pieces.
The General keeps on bloating further and further
The King too bloats more and more
The smile of the King too turns all bloated
The stars of the Generals keep bloating
The troops are fed with more and more devilish frenzy and so
grow on.

They are all eager to share the vile strategies of War
and the bare cruelties of Victory.
They are all too ready to explain any number of times
in minute details
about the genocide carried out
and the way they had butchered en masse
for achieving it.
As so valorous and brave-hearted
they are all eager to stand in front of the dead bodies
posing majestically
and to pile up the corpses in deep hollowness

03
The white flags have become spies hiding murder within
They acted in sharp readiness and immense eagerness to
shoot at whoever happened to come across
Those who surrendered were gifted away to murder
Those arrested were chosen for torture
After butchering
they had covered the children with white flags
After raping
they had shrouded the women too with white flags

They had turned into handcuffs, the shirts worn outside
and the shirts worn inside
With ropes filled with the evil designs of homicide
they had the hands tied.
As each one of them was looking on
they witnessed their blood flowing out of them;
witnessed their blood streaming down
into the very depths of the soil turned muddy,
all mixed with blood.
Dead bodies of all sorts were shown to them.

The troops trained to butcher and torture and to root out
do not feel it fit to end it all with just standing in front of the corpses
and sharing their victory
but, they lie in wait to carry out orders afresh for more annihilation.
They only want to go on elongating and the dreams of blood.

The troops carried out all kinds of activities to retrieve the Land.
The troops died in order to annihilate the people.
So the troops killed the people.
So the troops killed the militants.
So the King killed the Land.
With blood and flesh the King has built his palace.

04
What have you done to those eyes wherein
the fear of death remained frozen?
What have you done to those faces which keep agonizing,
looking at all the faces with their eyes so full
of miserable longing ?
What have you done to that boy who was caught all alone?
What have you done to that child which,
slipping from the hold, was left abandoned?
Why did the heavy boots come dangerously close?
Why did the demonic uniforms move dangerously close?
Why did the guns that are on a destruction spree
draw dangerously close?
Why did the dictates to finish off
hover so dangerously close?

The face of the boy, dying out of all too brutal tortures,
is still convulsing on all the Small Screens
Children keep hovering beneath the land.
______________________
19.05.2010

*Note: A Documentary on war-crimes comprising some more photographs showing
the way the Tamils were tortured and killed and information about the gory
scenes and incidents, including an interview of an Army commander giving
detailed account of the way the Army behaved in the final battle-zone has been
released recently in Channel 4 by Jonathan Miller.

A poem by Deebachelvan titled
கொலைக் காட்சிகளின் நிழல்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE GREEN SUN THAT LAY IN THE EAST

In that blood spread sandy land people
left only belatedly
The militant also, who stood extending the riffle till midnight
Began to lose his last ray of hope
The people were walking along the path of the dead
The sister who observed that smile still prevailed in Mullivaaikkaal
started leaving through the sorrow-flowing fingers
The sky began to darken in a big way.

Results which proved unbelievable to one and all
were surfacing.
Tears which none could bear flowed as a deluge.
With a wound so intense there was bleeding all over.

with the commands subsiding the appeals sank,.
The monstrously shared blood seeping through the white clothes
was deceiving one and all.
In the land which was always exploding and turning to ashes
You have left someone behind.
In the sorrow-filled battle-field where the souls wander
Someone was still fighting with all his might.
Someone had fought till the very end to save the ground.
When all the guns ceased to sound
When all were turned silent
What was left?
My dear sister, did you see the abandoned smile so ruthlessly killed?
What had befallen your Hope?
Did you ever believe that the fingers would break apart
and fall off?
The sand had shrouded and buried all the thirsts
and the hunger of dream.

They had laid the Sun there in an awkward position
In the field of life all the young ones lay, dead and gone
Did you see a mother lying there dead, hugging her children?
In the end why fire glowed and then it was all gloom there?
Why did the sky turn dark bringing heavy downpour?
What were the last words of the Man?
What was the sky telling by way of lamenting?
Why was the Great Land frozen to the core?
What for our cities were broken to pieces?
The last man has left somewhere.

With blood streaming under the bush
With the skull looted, the Green Sun was lying in the East.
The blood drenching everyone’s face all red, applied danger on all of them.
With an all too magnificent Dream which could never be wiped off
staying glued to the Great Land
the final moment of the ticking hearts stand lost and still
with the clock-hand broken irrevocably.
_________________
(May 18) (மே 18)

Thanks : PONGUTHAMIZH

A Poem in Tamil by Deepachelvan titled
கிழக்கில் கிடந்த பச்சை சூரியன்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SURRENDERED CHILD OF THE ARRESTED MOTHER

There lay many a countenance
in *Nandhik-Kadal
In cyanide cups
the children drank milk
The mothers with guns
went past carrying kids.

All the godowns of Mullivaaikaal
close down.
From there corpses and their children
surface and come.


With the Sea captured, the sand getting displaced
is hauled away by the Sea
The barbed wires welcome
wearing the faces of indivisible countries..


With the region released
turning into the air-conditioned rooms of Death,
in the songs of torture
the night keeps reverberating.
With the great land turning into burial ground
the refugee camps are fast approaching

The mother had been arrested
The child had surrendered.
The gun stands between the two.
The thorny wire spreads as the attire.
The dead bodies come to lie in one corner
of Nandhik-Kadal.
Sri Lanka finishes devovouring Eelam.
_____________________
17 May2009
Thanks: AMRUTHA, JUNE 2009

A Poem in tamil by Deebachelvan titled
கைது செய்யப்பட்ட தாயின் சரணடைந்த குழந்தை
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

The City Wandering Without Words

Death with a cruel face finishes
devouring the children
Along with a militant
twenty civilians around
were shot at and felled.
The house is plunged in a digit.

In the wrong estimation
those who celebrate Deaths and are startled,
turned anguished to the core seeing the
withered flowers of
the city wandering without words.
In the front page of the Journals
the tears of words remained brimming.
At the entrance of the Media office
that the sounding guns pursue,
the all too terrible caution of blood was heaped.

The remaining one who cries losing the corpses
with the coffins ever- ready
is lying inside.
The city remains dumbstruck.

All over the city which is laid under siege by flags
the last region of people’s defeat
is drawn.
The children
wearing the banned uniforms
are made to stand under the corpses
that keep falling down and scattering on all sides.

The city, all the while wandering without words,
finally hiding itself inside the coffin
the children carrying them
are wandering all over the city.
_________________
20.05.2009
Thanks : VADAKKU VAASAL

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
சொற்களற்றலைகிற நகரம்
Translated into English by latha Ramakrishnan

THE DREAM OF DEAR SISTER WHO HAS LOST ALL EYES

Dear sister who has lost even her second husband
whom she had bade farewell with the word to return
bringing to an end the war
Has sent word informing that she is still alive
With no answer my words keep wasting away
With voices that are laden with anguish
She keeps asking for her sights always
And she keeps searching for her children which
would always be playing in front of her

The scenes sabotaged and destroyed
are filling the soul to the brim
“I have lost all my eyes”-
So she goes on telling.
It was the shell that had snatched away the eyes which
uprooted her two girl-children.
It was when she was writhing in agony, sightless
that she was removed from the ground where
a deluge of people have
lost their eyes.
Her eyes were stolen
And she went on searching for her children and eyes
The blood of the scattered children
drenched even that spot where her wounded eyes lay

She had seen the great land in its final stage
steeped in the blood of children.
And she has returned unable to see her
Mother Land ever again.
Since the day taken away by the Sea
losing her dream she has been searching in vain for her world.
Bits and pieces of shells pervade all over her body
Dear Sister who has lost her eyes keeps on speaking about dreams
_________________________
Thanks: MARUPAADHI , Issue 03.

A Poem in Tamil By Deebachelvan titled
எல்லாக கண்களையும் இழந்த சகோதரியின் கனவு
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THOSE LOST ON THE WAY, ON THE LAST DAY

This day is miserably brimming with
the tales of lambs that have been lost on the way.

This Radio* is broadcasting the Programme which still keeps searching
for those who had lost their way.
Every mother laments in that Programme wailing
“Oh, how did you slip through my grip and fell off?...”
From that last day till date
your Mother** is searching for you**.
The shirt I have, in your memory,
How can that be advertised in any journal?
And, another page of an other journal keeps on writing
about the tales of those frozen bodies of those
who had been lost along the way
just the way the photographs had been lost.

Another journal keeps enquiring after those lost,
with so full of letters…
Bringing letters filled with words of great sorrow
each week keeps arriving

All these letters read just hope that they would all return.
How would have been the cry of the child that had slipped and fallen
turned silent?
How would have been the night of the little girl
slipped from the grip and disappeared once and for all?
How would have been the path of the lad who had been lost all alone?
What would be the pain of the mother who has lost her children?
What would be the direction of the wife separated from her husband?
How would be the anguish of those forced apart from their brothers?

The letters loaded with the sorrow of those who have been
separated from all near and dear ones
keep swelling and weighing the density of Separation.
With questions that have no answers
the night lies there completely shattered.

The wait and the hope that they would return keep growing.
With the paths where they had been lost shutting down
the letters that underline the lasting separation dumped deep down
and the sand is poured upon and spread even.
Unable to disclose that none has returned
the Night Programme of Radio melts into a close.
And, for a letter written by someone lost
filled with words of hope and happiness
Your Mother keeps on waiting…

______________________________
09.12.௨00௯ * SURIYAN F.M, ** Gajaanandh’s Mother, *** Gajanandh, *** Sudaroli Weekly**** Mithran Weekly

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled IRUDHI NAAL VAZHIYIL THOLAINDH POENAVARGAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE DECLARATION OF WAR PURSUING THE YEAR

All the years
scatter just the empty nights alone.
Just like the yester year when I didn’t meet you
nor shared anything with you
this year is
lying in wait to come at midnight
and wake me up.

On the day when it was declared in advance that
War would destroy our village
and bring our dream to an end
all that have been captured so far
are going to be displayed.

In the space where You and I are
so easily ignored
and where War is drawing near,
stands writhing in pain
Our house sans celebration.

You , Our Words
and all the Spaces where we are to be
sharing them in joyous togetherness.
are being devovoured by a creeping serpentine
all too quietly.
The year is pursued in a hot chase
by the Declaration of War with further wanderings and displacements.
_____________________
14.04.2009
(This poem is for recollecting the yester year)

A Poem of Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled வருடத்தை தொடருகிற போரின் பிரகடனம்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SECOND DIOLOGUE ON THE STORY OF ‘APPAM’

You would always be reminding and recollecting the first dialogue.
On that semi-wall where cigarette pieces would be
neatly piled up in one corner
we had ever and again conversed
umpteen number of times.
Each night had in the end
made us converse with each other.
Your leg which would be carrying the Appams
and the evening when the flour for that would be ground
we have indeed lost.
as a result of the War we have lost our very lives.

In the stream that stands next to the tea-shop where we used to smoke
rows after rows stand the sediment of ash.
In our city which had developed by leaps and bounds
we used to go wandering
relishing bear.
When holding our glasses aloft
We used to sit there and share our experiences of selling the edibles
our city was glowing in
an enchanting light.
We have toiled for our city.
We have held it close to our heart.
When we used to sit behind those shops
deep in conversation
when we were hiding there
fearing the terrible air-crafts
You were close by my side.

My dear Friend, we had always been those
getting a good thrashing for the sake of cigarettes.
Just like all other things
now, our beautiful city is not there
for you to shout and sell the edibles;
nor your tasty Appams
and the cigarettes;
nor the evening hours when you would be
grinding the flour.
But, as the mega dialogue of our intimacy,
the cigarette infinite
you keep simmering inside .
In that debris of the semi-wall what have the cigarette –pieces turned to?
The War has destroyed everything.
Oh, we should not have lost you.
With you we have lost everything.

When it is said that your dead body, lying abandoned
had been identified by somebody
your second course of dialogue about Appam
begins all alone and
goes on and on and on…
Where did you get lost?

I wont be returning to the all too shattered city.
Will there be someone calling out and selling ‘Appam’?
Who at all would be waiting to buy them?
Every cigarette I light keep
burning for you.
The cup filled with liquor for you
is always there in front of me
____________________
08.09.2009. That, my very close friend SriGajanath, who was my dearest pal, one who was closer than all the others hailing from the city of Kilinochi had caught in the vicious attack of the final battle and breathed his last and that they had seen his corpse they say. Even after searching all the Detention camps it was not found anywhere.

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Tamil
titled APPATHIN KADHAI PATTRIYA IRANDAAVADHU URAIYAADAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE MONUMENT WHERE DREAM HAD SPROUTED

They have fortressed the Monument with terror
not allowing anyone to approach it
the Mothers who have buried their children
keep saying that in those burial-grounds
dreams keep surfacing, being pushed out.

All the Mothers pay their homage
To the Monument Tower
Where Souls reside.

The Monument of immensely terrible hunger
with Dreams sprouted
was shockingly damaged on a night.
Who destroyed it?
Oh, why?
In that night which still remains a mystery
the anguish and sorrow of Dream overflows.

On that very same night when those men
stealthily coming
had dragged away the children
this Monument had been damaged.
When that child, searching for its parents
cried in agony unbearable
the lap that cradled his dreams
was cruelly attacked and destroyed.

Who at all could forget the face
filled with the great grand hunger of Dream
In our cups full of hunger the torn flesh, broken bones
and clothes of our children alone
come to be.

To say that we are being killed again and again
there are absolutely no other words.
In the city where the children dread
the prospect of coming out, stepping into the street
in the bones, broken to pieces and thrown away
the fear-filled blood of the kids is wide-spread.

Destroying a dream
and strangulating a child
cause the same unbearable sorrow.
The Mothers come and see
The hunger of Dhileepan burning in the heart still.

_________________
A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled

KANAVU ARUMBIYIRUNDHA NINAIVIDAM

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE SAND WHERE WORDS TURN DECOMPOSED

I am listening
Please speak
As it proves impossible to share
the way Sorrow keeps pouring and overflowing
in the woods with no words
I swallow the words that keep breaking into two
and turning decomposed.
Don’t mind me.
Keep telling about yourself
In the Woods sans words
My ears get filled up with sand.

Except the noise
of shells falling down
planes roaring above
gun-shots going on everywhere-
Absolutely no other sound at all.
Your phone-call.
The sand-dam surfaces.

Except being alive
there is nothing else.
Even the life reduced to half
the words getting decomposed come
one by one.
Except one or two words of yours
being scattered by shells
I have got nothing.
The sandy floor begins to burn.

In the conversation that hangs suspended midway
The fear for your safety resurfaces
From the moment you had disconnected
I keep waiting for your words
after the terrible battle.

The hollow sand opens its mouth all too wide.
How long I would be swallowing
my words being decomposed,
hiding myself from you?
The phone remains there weighing heavy.
The sand stirs up and blows.
__________________
(May 2009)

A poem in Tamil from Deebachelvan titled
SORKALL SIDHAIGIRA MANAL
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER

In a solitary island they have confined you.
The Identification Number stamped on the back
remains stuck on the thorny fence.
The watch-towers atop the trees
are going past myself.
In the spaces where the wind keeps wandering
endless vacuum keeps swelling.
In the house built of thorny-wires
the cock writhes and moans.
With the sky melting and filling up the rice-pot
You stir up the Hope of
living for the sake of children.
Of those streets and lanes that you know not
I won’t be saying anything.
Time is going past us all too hurriedly.

The thorny-fence is worn round
the child’s person, as attire..
While I was coming through the green fields
the usual shrieks of unbearable torture could be heard.
Many a penis and vagina keep floating
in the Sea-Lake
The watch-towers have thronged the old bridge,
devovouring it.

Caught between Night and Day
You are crushed and torn apart.
The Identity-Card is hanging in my neck.
In the relief-food that has come after a long time
You calculate the Modern Economy.
In the house with no walls wherein dust enters
The colonial cities
are coming and installing themselves.
Words are there still.
You leave without saying something.
Your words are piled up in the emptied cartridges
of the shells that have dumped us here in a heap
are neatly kept in rows.
The poem that you are unable to write -
Please read it to me.
Words keep pouring down behind.

When the time allotted for me gets over
the noise of the cock comes to be.
Now I recollect once again
The Identification Number of Yours.
_____________
(May 2009 )

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
MUTKAMBIGALIL PADIGIRA ADAIYAALA ILAKKAM
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

THE DREAM OF ARULLAMMAA WHO HAS WADED THROUGH THE SORROW-STRUCK SPAN OF TIME

In the face-to-face session with this old lady
who has lost all her precious times
in incessant and irreparable destruction
Words have turned frozen.
The dream of life that lies dormant in her voices
and her hunger that remains
non-satiated
She keeps telling again and again

AruLlammaa who had escaped from dreadful moments and returned
has her eyes filled with God.
In the Land of immensely deep perils
they have brought her times in a chair.
Arullammaa’s ever elongating prayers
grow bigger than the size of God.
The dream for Life remains frozen in the words of Life
that has come to its close with nothing but disappointments.

The tales she has in store
laden with the cruel experiences of War
And her body that has refused to
explode and scatter into bits
Her long, full-fledged life that has
refused to be silenced
keep nurturing never-ending dreams.
The old lady who has defied the War
keeps sharing with the kids
the Great Tale of Colossal Destruction
Arullammaa is speaking to the children about nothing else
but the unrealized dreams
______________

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled
THUYAR MIGUNDHA KAALATHI KADANDHA ARULLAMMAAVIN KANAVU
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

(Thanks: Pongu Thamizh)

THE GREAT LAND : WEARING ALL WOUNDS IT STANDS THERE SMILING

(A lot more news yet to be accessed lie there, buried deep in that Great Land)

Deaths that none have yet realized in full
Keep seeping on the seashore of Nandhi-Kadarkarai.
The cassettes that entwine all kinds of tortures in a long chain
The troops watch in their exclusive night Channels
as a great pastime.
In the great land captured by the accused and criminals
all that are desired are being carried out.


In the ground where men, holding tight their dreams
were so buried
they have planted the soldier who holds the gun
that reminds everything-
the soldier filled with venom and violence
keeps showing his gory face on all sides
of the Great Land

He keeps elaborating on his glorious tales
of defeating and annihilating the people of the land.
Splashing his victory song up above the sky
He drenches the whole land with it.
In the region where entry is prohibited to children
With Death oozing out and pervading
The demonic women having skeletons tied in their legs
keep performing their terrorizing dances.


Wherever the Emperor of the Song of Valour and Victory treads
Death and Blood are being felt.
With the voices murmuring and turning silent
everything is buried down under.
The soldier who is made to stand there by the Emperor
adorned by the garland of victory
Is busily giving out the tales of those fallen
and the ways in which they were made to fall
releasing their visuals in photographs

Wearing all wounds the Great Land stands there smiling.
_____________________
9.12.2009 (Thanks to Pongu Thamizh)

A poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled PERUNILAM: KAAYANGALAI ANINDHU PUNNAGAITHUK-KONDIRUKKIRADHU

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

WHAT DO THE CHILDREN WANT?

The children have got their wide range of responses
from the query of the Emperor.
In the street elongated in a maze
all the children entwining their hands, ask
what the children want
Listening to the query
The Emperor responds saying
that it is the Time being offered by Him.
With he saying further that
it is prosperous and so full of Liberty and Equality
the Children begin their queries
from the very words of the Emperor.

The Emperor has applied his smile of absolute power
on all the syllables and words
and he turns towards the children
the face that turns them terror-stricken.
In the book designed by his numerous brains that
exploits and swindles the world of children
He speaks of children and children alone.

He who had snatched away and plundered everything
from the hands of children
He who has shaped the monstrous Time
that has plunged the children in terrible gloom
declares that he is going to gift the prosperous Time
of Cruelties to the kids.
The children know everything.

The children do not want
that Power that shrouds everything
and allow them to rot
all the while scattering on all sides
a Smile
The children do not want
the aims and objectives that
devovouring one’s natural self
imprisons with all too evil schemes
The children do not want
those thoughts that have gifted Curses
and destroyed Histories
and have become so wide-spread
The Emperor keeps wounding
the children’s tender hearts
with his responses
and their eyes
with his smile.

________________________

A Poem in Tamil by Deebachelvan titled

KUZHANDHAIGAL AASAIPADUVADHU ENNA?

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan