It has been six months since I looked at the sky
All are around…very near
But we don’t care a damn about it…
We keep running for something.
How much time has elapsed
after I halted a bit , looked at the ground and soil leisurely?
Poor birds keep calling me every morning
in heaven’s language from Nandivardhanam tree.
No, I don’t listen to. I bog down in the slush of politics
The crawling baby catches my lungi and creeps up on me.
I don’t notice her sweet smile. Nor do I get ecstatic.
Entering into the television in front in the ostensible name of aerobics
I dip in the buxom beauty of some babe.
Stretching his ray hands, the poor sun keeps calling me for long
But no sensibility I have, to shake hand.
In the company of a mobile phone
busily immersed I am, in the SMSes, prattles and giggles.
From some radio Hariprasad Chowrasia
keeps transmitting the nectar-filled waves of flute song.
But to no avail…No time to listen to anything
I need to go out. Go, I must.
Leaving the children, wife and fragrance-ocean in the heart
I must rush into the rat race of money hunt.
Auto, bus, train…Up…Train again. Bus, auto…Down
Throughout the life up and down…Down to earth…Earth to hell.
In the middle, a sweet tintinnabulation from a distant temple
But of no avail, for I don’t hear it.
Hundreds of pigeons keep calling from the yard of Mecca mazjid.
But no. I don’t see them.
Lift…Tenth floor…Stampede… Squeezing into a corner
Sprinting from the trap, like a mouse…fast…work work always work
Every work for money only. Thousand rupee notes spread out in eyes and dreams.
When I come onto the road… trapped rain water, manholes with open mouths.
Rain behind man… Man beyond rain
Ultimately the whole city a pond of stinking water
If eyes are closed sleep(lessness) is a chimera.
If eyes are opened all the living is an illusion
Not knowing what we are gaining or losing
immersed we are, in an intense madness.
When did I last sit in green grass under a tree?
It’s a long ago that I watched the clear blue sky
Fie…Wretched life…A self built hell

Origin (Telugu): Rama Chandra Mouli
Translated by: Elanaaga