My transcreations have been publsihed

The India Habitat Centre and Delhi Poetree organized a poetry reading by 50 poets (across 4 languages - English, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi) at the Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre on the 7th of August, 2007 to mark the first anniversary of Delhi Poetree which hosts Tuesday Night as Poetree Night at the India Habitat Centre and poetry readings across many venues in Delhi and the National Capital Region.

The Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dixit inaugurated the function and a small anthology of 50 poems called "In Many Voices" was also released. Contributers to the anthology include Keki N Daruwallah, Amit Dahiyabadshah, Tarannum Riyaz, Deepa Agarwal, Makarand Paranjape and Tino da Sa, among others and has been edited by Manjul Bajaj.

Two of my transcreations find a proud place in the anthology. They are:

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SPACELESS

"Forgotten for ever are they,
once they fall from their place,
Hair, Women and Nails."
So explained our Sanskrit Teacher,
the essence of a Shloka,
and scared, we girls,
got riveted onto our seats.

Space? What is space?
Its meaning clear to us
in our first grade itself
We remember each word
of those early lessons

"Ram, go to the school!"
"Radha, prepare dinner!"
"Ram, have one more bite!"
"Radha, sweep the floor!"
"Your brother is feeling sleepy,
go, prepare his bed!"

Wow, our new house!
"Ram, this is your room!"
"And, mine?"
"Are you insane?
Girls, Winds and Sunlight are like sand,
they have no abode to call their own!"

Where, in what space, what slot, are they,
those who don't have an abode?
Where is that space, by losing which,
I would become a woman?
Like nail-bits,
like hair strands on a comb,
to be peeled off and thrown away?

A house, left behind
An abode, left behind
left behind are the people I loved
But, some questions followed me
Now, I have left behind them too

Left behind are some spaces

But, never ever did I feel
Like being stuck in a nail-cutter
or dangling loosely in a comb

De-hors my culture, I feel
like a small couplet
extracted from a timeless Classic
and sprinkled on the question paper of B.A. Pass Course
-yet wary of anyone analyzing or answering me.

Beyond each hurdle
with much effort have I flapped my wings
So what if they read me
like Tukaram's unfinished prose?

A poem in Hindi titled "Be.jagah" by Anamika
Transcreated on 30th March, 2006
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PUNCTUATIONS


Forced to turn even
the slightest of incoherent grunts
into questions,
perhaps annoyed,
the question mark
stoops and hangs its head

In the heat of
the surprises
that couldn't be penned,
in the anger
at not being able to read them all,
the exclamation mark
melts in agony

Like a child in the womb
unfazed,
it can recline
and meditate
That explains the sanity
of a semi-colon
even as words crowd around

When they are herded together,
those heavy ones from the past,
to keep them in line,
the quotation signs
could perhaps be
silently praying to the present tense

Perhaps in its inability to tell anyone
that the end is merely a myth,
lies the sorrow of a gloomy full-stop
and the reason
for its shrunken existence


A poem in Malayalam by T.P. Vinod
Transcreated on 1st March, 2007
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