I am tired
the morning star whispers
I am tired of shining in the solitude
of this washed out sky
dust swirls in the dry bed of the Ganga
a camel ambles towards the city
with its load of shining deep green melons
its bells ringing in the cool breeze of dawn

it is the month of Jeth
with its nightlong festivities

the villagers’ love
for bells and ghungroos
is surprising

tiny bells on a colored string
around the necks of oxen cows goats
and some children even garland
the long neck of a duck
with a weightless solitary ghungroo

it is their love
the music of their soul
that sounds in these bells

this information is only for the learned
ordinary people already know it

***

but the route that I have chosen is different
not shorter not easier
just an irrational absolute certainty
I chose a different route

when I descended
into the rocky bed of the Ganga
the kashyaps dheemars nishads and mallahs
were like always growing
melons cucumbers and gourds

crossing the bridge
with an elastic click clack
you must have also often seen
from the window of a train
spread in the blotchy expanse of white sand
beside the weak flow
this soft unripe green world

in the evenings
smoke rising from the thatched roof of a hut
and the even smaller-seeming
naked dark children –
this sight entrancing
travelers going to far lands
filling their hearts with longing

in just such a hut
lives Rukmini barely fourteen
with her widowed mother

her elder brother is in jail
for making hooch
the younger brother’s rotting corpse
was found two years before
in the thick blade-like grass of the riverbed
which cuts even the legs of cattle

the boy had been kidnapped
by the Kalua gang from across the river
for a ransom of ten thousand
which could not be paid

pleading and prayer – nothing worked

now even the mother has become an expert
in brewing hooch by burying draff in the sand
like the rest of the riverside hut-dwellers

***

the grampradhaan of Babhiya
the village by the river
in whose perimeter Rukmini’s hut falls
is Somwati wife of Ramkhilauna
pradhaanpati – a new word
of our now mature democratic vocabulary

Ramkhilauna has
with guns and the support of the community
managed to strike fear
into the hearts of the thakurs
who had forever reigned over the village
the profit he brought to
his community’s ragtag entrepreneurs
by organizing the hooch industry
is praised in every home
all this has increased his standing greatly
he calls Rukmini’s mother chachi
and the way he averts his glance
from the daughter who is growing like a green cucumber
makes the mother’s faith in his good character
even stronger

Rukmini is barely fourteen
she feels like saying brother and throwing her arms
around Ramkhilauna
then a thought occurs to her
and she stops herself

***

I have heard Rukmini’s voice
calling her mother like a child sometimes
sometimes like a young parrot
that eagerly greets the morning
even from inside a cage

sometimes just a muffled cry
I have often seen at her door
the middle-aged policeman
with the area’s infamous young
smack smuggling lawyer on whose jeep
is a sign saying press or MLA representative
as the fancy strikes

they or the old mother’s curses and abuses
must be the reason why
the riverside’s smack-addicted loafers
only look at this hut from a distance
with fear and longing

this is the way in which
Rukmini has understood without knowing
the many complex and ugly secrets of her society
through the medium of her soon to be ragged
life and body even though
she does not know the meaning of the word society

what a farce such a future is
green-golden scum longing to float
like cream
to the top of rotting water

and a woman’s body
you don’t know but whenever you touch her
no matter what your intention
you take away a piece of her soul
against the hollowness of which
she beats her head

this is the story of this rotting water
going past which is my separate route

***

Rukmini’s state is what it is
but even at her age her mother has not lost
the habit of dreaming
sometimes she sees
her man Naresa fourteen years dead
punting in the shallow water of the Ganga
returning home
his arms were like iron
sometimes she sees
her son running through the grass
shouting I’m hungry I’m hungry
as blood flows
from his shredded young skin

sometimes she sees
a wedding procession at the door
and Rukmini’s heels stained with aalta

the old woman’s habit of dreaming hasn’t gone

getting a cow and tending to it
drinking its milk and giving it to her daughter to drink –
all this has remained only a dream
she has to tend to her daughter instead

looking for wooden shelter all the time
in the riverbed’s parched sandy wilderness
filled with razor grass
how that mother’s heart keeps burning like dung cake
only she knows
or those distant unseen kindhearted people
whom she does not know but in whose eyes
rainclouds still gather inspired
by the warmth of the heart’s sun
to them even the night is kind and gives light
and even though it may seem trite
for them humanity sings a silent song of waiting
grinding a millstone in darkness

that is why I have chosen a different route
an irrational absolute certainty
that is why the tired morning star is eager
to drown in the light of day

(Translation: Rahul Soni)