Three Poems by Debendra Lal - Translated by Pitambar Naik from Odia into English

  

Debendra Lal is a lawyer by profession. He writes poetry in Odia. His work appears in numerous Odia journals and in Indian Literature, the journal of the Kendra Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. He’s two books of poetry, Andhakshara and Birodhavasa. He grew up in Kesinga in Odisha, India.

 

The Wild

 

The wild will no longer be wild, but had they

been wild forever, it would have been good.

The wild will gradually construe the difference

between the vowel and the consonant

they’ll also learn how to sum up the

arithmetic, they’ll study modern literature,

science, geography and will understand

where the profit and loss is along with

the reason why the sun rises and goes down.

The wild will no longer be wild----painful,

that’s my sorrow-----like someone’s skeletal

body, empty stomach and a tear that doesn’t

ooze and the unexploded whoop of the heart.

 

Coming out of the jungle, the wild will

understand the civility and as time goes by,

in a few decades, they’ll be civilised and 

regret for their nakedness, they’ll be dressed

in urban attire----jeans, blazer, suit, pants,

bras and panties, they’ll tune to the latest

cosmetics instead of clay and turmeric

doing away with kendu-leaves bidi,

they’ll switch over to smack and heroin. 

And eventually, the wild will be civilised

leaving the deserted jungle they’ll fly

by the Boeing jet faster than the sound

facing towards the sky, they’ll go in search

of a new planet like the earth to recycle

another jungle to be wild at any cost.

 

 

Dad

 

Dad, you lost. You lost that’s why

I came to take charge of everything.

It’s scorching, here

is it easy to run in the scorching sun?

 

The road is even longer than

our longevity   

at the end of the road, there’s a godown

and the godown houses everything.

 

Only the hardest part is that to wish

dad, grandmom said that

you’re running so fiercely.

 

How far was the godown from you?

Just now I have started running

it’s done, when I crossover the hills

behind the Kali temple.

 

But, dad, will I be able to cover this little

an extra mile or should I call son? 

 

 

Ram

 

Whether or not Ram was there I don’t know. Whether or not

Ram would come one day, that also I don't know. But then, the only

thing I know is that there’s one Ram Lal, there’s one Ram Prasad,

there’s one Ram Kumar and there’s one, Ram Ratan Ghasi.  

 

The one who’s a servant at someone’s house the one who’s

pulling a rickshaw from daybreak to the sundown the one

who’s begging from door to door and the one who’s head-carrying

human excreta daily from the Notified Area Council. I

’m saying the truth, whether or not Ram was, I don’t know. 

 

 

The poem portrays the blood-chilling and despicable impact of the

caste system on Dalits and how it has reduced them to subhuman.

 

Translated from the Odia by Pitambar Naik

 

Pitambar Naik is an advertising copywriter for a living. When he’s not creating ideas for brands, he writes poetry. His work appears or is forthcoming in The McNeese Review, The Notre Dame Review,  Packingtown Review, Ghost City Review, Rise Up Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Indian Quarterly and elsewhere. He’s the author of the poetry collection, The Anatomy of Solitude (Hawakal). He grew up in Odisha and lives in Bangalore, India.