A MORTAL OF A LESSER KIND
She drags the hose taking care
not to trip in its cunning coils
Has she ever dragged one before?
Perhaps in another existence,
Blindly obeying orders from ‘Above’,
Supping on left-overs,
Sweeping , washing pots and pans,
Putting out the garbage
Sleeping on the floor?
Her squint eyes deny access
to her inner being as though
One eye drew you away from her
even as you made contact with the other -
the dull greyness hides a hint of fear.
Where did she exist , poor soul,
All of her many years?
Did she ever feel and express love
to parent, sibling or her Man,
Some spurts of happiness
She must have had ?
Whose wickedness had withered her spirit,
leaving her shriveled, resigned, subdued, and –
so sad?
Did she ever have a corner on this Earth
to call her own, or was she, for as many years
as she can remember
a poor mortal of a lesser kind,
Cooking, sweeping , dusting and
washing other people’s
pots and pans?
PARVATHY - THE MIRIYABEDDE DISASTER
Parvathy melted clotted oil over the fire
And lit her lamp and prayed
to her trusted gods and goddesses
In a dim recess arrayed,
dried up garlands casting shadows
in the flickering glow.
Her sons Perumal and Selvan
Set off to school, stumbling under
tatty umbrellas - two wet magpies
chewing on remnants of roti,
the cold relentless rain
dissolving the lines of holy ash
on their young brows..
Downing a half –mug of plain tea,
Tucking a chew of betel in her jaw
And the hem of her saree at her waist.
Hoisting a bundle of cut grass upon her head,
Parvathy set out to feed the goats.
Noiselessly at first, like moving treacle
tons of sodden earth shifted
pushing all before them and then with
a mighty roar like a billion angry bees,
descended, boulders crashing……. final darkness
smothering, sparing none.
in school, the children huddled,
Amidst chaos “Amma-a-a-a!” Selvan sobbed
and Perumal hugged him, pleading,
Unconvinced and unconvincing:
“Thambi ! Don’t cry! Hush, hush!
Amma will surely come for us!”
November 2014.
Sakuntala Sachthanandan
************
HER BOY
In the dawn lit dew fresh garden
Latha swished her ekel broom,
at ease, with the world at peace –
her heart swelling like
the ripening grain in yonder field,
with silent pride at her good fortune
which seemed to rise and flow
around her in a golden glow
with every eddy and whorl of dust,
every stroke.
As she lit the lamp and joss-sticks
And lay fragrant stars of jasmine
At her altar to The Buddha,
her mind raced unbidden
to the manicured lawns and buildings
glittering in the sun at the Exalted Citadel -
The university! - the sight of which
had struck her dumb with awe:
to leave him in such
a wondrous place - her boy!
Soon, in the Exalted Citadel,
the pitiless sun beat down upon
her boy,
as he, with tears mingling with sweat,
bleeding hands, knees, and wheezing chest
with a knocking heart and broken spirit,
crawled across concreted floors
With his comrades in misfortune,
on all fours.
“He deserved it all!” thought fond Latha
memories of her boy flooding her mind:
Running home from the village school,
Slippers flapping, rushing through the door,
throwing his old bag on the floor!
Always first in class, poring over books
Muttering and wheezing
in the bottle-lamp’s flickering glow,
how Latha watched and laboured over him,
Only she would ever know.
The next morning in the citadel
They thrust his head into a pail
Which first, they had filled for him
With urine and spittle, to the brim.
Lurid commands, vile obscene gestures,
Exploding in his ears, screams of lunatic laughter
While the beasts, the so-called Seniors
ragged and terrorized the Freshers
in sadistic vicious pleasure.
And who were these beasts, but
the inexplicably depraved sons and daughters
Of ordinary law-abiding people who
would invoke The Blessings
of The Triple Gem and all the gods
At every turn and juncture
in piety, and never knew
How such a potent vicious brew
Came to surge and boil
In the blood of their
progeny.
July 2012 Sakuntala Sachithanandan
************
DAUGHTER
Daughter,
I see you in the young girls
on the sidewalk, laughing,
jaunty, jolly, in tight jeans
or sarees swishing at their heels
fat or lissome, stocky or lean.
Their soft skins glow like
the smooth petals of the plumeira
with the ebullience of youth
and their bright luminous eyes
beam a confidence that life,
as they knew it, would last a lifetime –
just as you thought ,
daughter.
But then, to you,
The Unspeakable happened.
We bow our heads in grief
But our tight - shut eyes cannot shut out
the tragedy of your rape,
nor bring you back to life.
But speak we must, which is the least we can do
although our lips stick together ,
our teeth clench and our throats turn dry
and hoarse with horror .
Speak up against the bestiality of some men
Whose cruelty is well beyond
the nature of the beasts:
Five dogs may line up near a bitch, each
snarling for his pleasure,
but: they’d never think of clubbing her
nor ramming metal rods in her
nor try to run her over in a bus
for good measure : -
that’s the human demons’ forte.
Battered, shattered, mangled
cut up, sewn up, entangled
in a web of tubes and bandages,
Your life spluttered in and out
And in the end you died,
Damina.
And now, your ashes scattered,
you are gone -
But the scum who did it all:
They live on.
January 2012
************
THE HALF-BUILT HOUSE OF DREAMS
The half-built house of dreams stands
on the wind-blown hill
under a blinding bell of hot blue sky.
From a corner beam hangs
a lantern from last Wesak,
or maybe the one before,
its paper torn, mildewed, struts askew.
Planked up on many sides where
the cement blocks ran out,
wads of newspaper replace
its broken window-panes.
Above, a slab now long-abandoned, moss- adorned,
Sprouts bouquets of bent steel wires,
rusted, forlorn.
A soiled dusty curtain flaps across the door – it sports
faded beauteous damsels from Sigiriya , row on row,
bejeweled, heavy-bosomed, lotus-eyed, –
and from within , one hears the “krus-krus”
of the brisk scraping of a coconut -
then a slap -
and a little child bursts forth,
sobbing loud.
Through listless weeds a bitch
of many litters slowly crawls –
and rests its weary head upon its paws.
At the far end, of one bare, dejected wall,
there appears the devout legend,
Hopeful of protection from all harm:
“Budu saranai – Devi pihitai ”
in a giant, shaky scrawl.
October 2011 Sakuntala Sachithanandan
Wesak:- Buddhist festival commemorating the birth, enlightenment and death of Lord Buddha.
Sigiriya:- legendary rock fortress of King Kashyapa now also believed by some to have been a monastery prior to that.
Sigiriya damsels:- beautifully executed frescoes of women on some rock faces in Sigiriya.
Budu Saranai:- (Sinhala) “May one find refuge in the Buddha.”
Devi Pihitiai:- (Sinhala) “May one receive the blessings of the gods.”
************
G O N E
(for my son)
I turn the handle and
the door opens –
The grey pall swings in, shocking,
Drawing decisively, the final curtain
on our foolish joy in you.
It quickly spreads,
Pressing reality into place,
As I see your pillow
Where you had lain your head.
Cheerfully you chatted
And we drank in every word
Like camels storing food
in their humps for a long fast
waiting sadly
for the bond to break,
Leaving us bleeding.
I see the book you read
I strip the bed and
Cover it in its customary shroud,
and place the pillows in the sun
Emptiness hits me in the face
Taunting, inescapable
Wherever I may turn
And shrill, inside my head
Unaccepted still,
Screams a silent good-bye.
4th January 2011
************
THE DOWRY AND WEDDED BLISS
It was only last night they had lain
in the soft moonlight streaming
through the bars of the window
past the flapping banana –
ecstatic, delighting in each other
He the handsome god of her dreams
and she his golden goddess:
Tender endearments were whispered
In the fulfillment of wedded bliss.
But morning brought his father,
The War of The Well and disaster
Here they were now, before the lawyer:
The groom and his father on one side
the bride and her father on the other,
The bride was quailing, tearful,
the groom was solemn, doleful,
Not even stealing a look at her
To ease her woe.
“This well in the dowry deed - ”
The father of the groom began,
Red in the face, waggling a finger -
“You knew, that it wasn’t there –
You didn’t tell us – was that fair?
WHAT is your explanation?”
The lawyer looked at the ceiling
With a resigned and pensive air.
Meekly, she peered at her groom
Who sat up as straight as a broom –
As though to him, she lacked something too
minus the well – and his father now boomed:
“We must be honest – mind you don’t cheat!
Without the well the dowry’s incomplete!”
The lawyer smiled in anticipation
Of the fee he’d charge for consultation
From this boor.
She thought the groom would now say:
“Let it go, she’s now my wife
And a vital part of my life - ”
But he looked straight ahead
She waited in dread:
And waited…and waited ….and waited… and then
It was her father’s turn to bargain.
SAKUNTALA MOHINI SACHITHANANDAN
************
NATURE VERSUS NURTURE
The leopard prowls at night creeping
from dank forests through Hatton tea fields
Into homesteads , snatching screaming goats and dogs
And fearful human wait – would they be next?
It brings back to me the night some years ago
When I lost my little dog to just such a leopard -
the sudden fearful screams, heart rending -
at dead of night- a horrendous shock
And a long and grueling grieving .
But I bowed my head to the relentless laws of Nature
for the leopard killed only to feed its brood
Not because it hated a dog for the colour of its face
Nor its religion or race
in incomprehensible convoluted
Hatred of The Other.
But In the dim and distant past,
my young husband travelling by bus
Was dragged out by a gang of men
lusting for blood, who bawled out a question
to the people In the bus -
Are any of you - Demaloo??
And he stood up - what were his thoughts? -
to be hauled out, assaulted, i thrown about
And was being dragged to a wayside hut
When some women begged of them
to let him go.
The wounds gaped and bled for years to come .
And to this day I have not forgotten
Nor have I forgiven
those mindless brutes who must be old men now.
Demaloo – colloquial Sinhalese for Tamils
SAKUNTALA MOHINI SACHITHANANDAN
************
TEA
Stunted,
gnarled and ancient,
grows the tea -
pruned time after time to give us of its life
in the
sap of it young leaves
in the famed, much advertised two leaves and a bud.
Likewise, stunted, thin and gaunt faced ,
The women scramble on the hills
Youth and innocent joy fled too quickly and
too soon,
With
their backs bent with the weight of harvest
Hour
after hour, day after day, heads bent
low –
Scorched
when the sun rides high;
Wet
and shivering,
leeches burrowing in their toes
when the rains descend
And the chill winds blow.
December 2011
Two leaves and a bud:- the number of leaves a tea
- plucker plucks at a time.
**********
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