Origin (Telugu): Nagaraju Ramaswamy
Translated by: Elanaaga

Long since, the life is sobbing
Like an erupted river.
It is hell, indeed, to sleep
Holding the dream-dried-eyes in hand
The lone and forlorn canoe,
Is swallowing the unceasing darkness
Drop by drop.
Limbs wrecked and gloomy,

The body that embraced the river
Casts the loneliness on the shore

Today I have no hands to beg love
Relentlessly
However, is it not the hunger-the lust
Stronger than love!
In the event, when the Sun is stolen from the heart
The blazing doubts are in Lakhs
The color of pain is same to everyone.
Do you wish to see?
The waterfalls dried up in my heart.
The starving mouths of streams crave for raindrops.

***

Getting wounded -
Getting wounded in a manner unclear
Whether it is a wound or not
Nothing is new here.

***

Me, being a man amidst the trees,
I wonder, how I could forget
that the trees won’t move and
that we only have to shelter under.

When my dreams are fulfilled
and my son grew tall and green, afar,
and when the shade spread by him
opened the doors of a golden cage
the days and nights
masqueraded and mocked at me.

May be the old age became another infancy
I am learning to talk the talk of my grand sons.

Only when I reached the other shore
I realized –
what I lost,
that all that is me and mine
not necessarily mean my son alone
and that every bit of
my town and my street,
my land and my ambience
is, but, me and mine.

Here, I tied down my soul,and
sent my body across the seas.
I wished, innocently,
when my son was young and sprouting
that he should grow big like a tree
and I must rest under the cool of its shade;
where ever he may be
how ever he may be.

Me, being a man amidst the trees,
I wonder, how I could forget
that the trees won’t move and
that we only have to shelter under.

When my dreams are fulfilled
and my son grew tall and green, afar,
and when the shade spread by him
opened the doors of a golden cage
the days and nights
masqueraded and mocked at me.

May be the old age became another infancy
I am learning to talk the talk of my grand sons.

Only when I reached the other shore
I realized –
what I lost,
that all that is me and mine
not necessarily mean my son alone
and that every bit of
my town and my street,
my land and my ambience
is, but, me and mine.

Here, I tied down my soul,and
sent my body across the seas.
But, that was not all that good!
My blood and flesh could retain,but, little
of my love and affection!

I cut short my trips abruptly;
But, fly again and again
when ever my heart is pulled from the other shore.

Original(Telugu): Kranthi Srinivasa Rao. (from Samaanthara Chaayalu)
Translation: Nagaraju Ramaswamy

Original: A.Surya Prakash (Telugu anthology ‘Aneka’-padella kavithvam)
Trandlation: Nagaraju Ramaswamy.

The pictures drawn by the streams
Before being caught by the eyes change
The leaves and the drops at bout one-on-one
How can drops win over the leaves?
In the majestic mass-parade
Rajkapoor and Nargis, on the Marindrive,
Heat up the rain

Somewhere at a distance
The broken lumps of lightning’s fall down
The rain snatched my umbrella
And threw it far away

Now, but for me, the rain and the darkness
No one is on the road

An anicient smell of sky
Submerged my body
A strange agitation
in the locks of the road-side bushes

Meanwhile, somewhere, the live wire snapped
Now, a rain within too!
An unnatural ugly chill gale swept across
as if something undesirable happened

In the flood
a stained blood streak afloat
And drifting inward
The feet drowned in water trembling
Isn’t that the blood of yesterday’s hero?
Collapsed to by the bullets!
Now, [...]]]> But for me and the rain
none are there on the road
The street lights
Turning the rain drops into pearls
String them as garlands

The pictures drawn by the streams
Before being caught by the eyes change
The leaves and the drops at bout one-on-one
How can drops win over the leaves?
In the majestic mass-parade
Rajkapoor and Nargis, on the Marindrive,
Heat up the rain

Somewhere at a distance
The broken lumps of lightning’s fall down
The rain snatched my umbrella
And threw it far away

Now, but for me, the rain and the darkness
No one is on the road

An anicient smell of sky
Submerged my body
A strange agitation
in the locks of the road-side bushes

Meanwhile, somewhere, the live wire snapped
Now, a rain within too!
An unnatural ugly chill gale swept across
as if something undesirable happened

In the flood
a stained blood streak afloat
And drifting inward
The feet drowned in water trembling
Isn’t that the blood of yesterday’s hero?
Collapsed to by the bullets!
Now, but for me and he
No one is there on the road.

Original: Dr. N.Gopi( Telugu – ‘Aneka’ padella kavithvam)
Translation: Nagaraju Ramaswamy.