Poems of T K Muraleedharan
വ്യാഴാഴ്ച ചന്ത
അല്പം മുമ്പു വരെ പച്ച കുപ്പിവളകൾ നിറച്ച മറാഠി തരുണിയുടെ കൈതണ്ട
പോലെ തിക്കി തിരക്കി, കിലുങ്ങി കുണുങ്ങിക്കൊണ്ടിരുന്ന ഈ തെരുവ് എത്ര
പെട്ടെന്നാണ് എല്ലാം
തട്ടിയുടച്ചു കളഞ്ഞത്.
വഴിക്കച്ചവടങ്ങളൊക്കെ
ആട്ടിപ്പായിച്ച
മുനിസിപ്പാലിറ്റി വാഹനങ്ങൾ
ഇപ്പോൾ കടന്നുപോയതേയുള്ളൂ.
ഇവിടത്തെ വ്യാഴാഴ്ച ചന്തയിൽ
ഇത്
പുതിയ കാര്യമൊന്നുമല്ല,
കീറിപ്പറിഞ്ഞ തെരുവിന്റെ
പുറകിലേക്ക്
ചുരുണ്ടു കിടക്കുന്ന ഗലിയിൽ
ഏതു നിമിഷവും എടുത്ത് ഓടാൻ
പാകത്തിൽ ഒരു ചായക്കട
കത്തുന്ന സ്റ്റൗ
കെട്ടുപോകാതിരിക്കാൻ
ഒരു ബിസ്കറ്റ് ടിൻ
വെട്ടിയെടുത്ത് അതിന്റെ മൂന്നു പുറവും മറച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു
പാലും പഞ്ചസാരയും ഏലക്കയും
ഇഞ്ചിയുമൊക്കെ ചേർന്ന്
ചെമ്പ് അടുക്കിൽ മസാലച്ചായ
തിളച്ചുമറിയുന്നു.
ഇടയ്ക്കിടയ്ക്ക് ഇളക്കി, ഉള്ളംകയ്യിലേക്ക് ഇറ്റിച്ച് പാകം നോക്കി ചായക്കാരൻ
ചായ കുടിക്കാൻ കാത്തുനിൽക്കുന്ന സുന്ദരികളിലൊരുവി ശ്രമപ്പെട്ട്
സ്റ്റൗവിൽ നിന്ന് ഒരു സിഗരറ്റ് കൊളുത്തി, അതിൽ നിന്ന് കൂട്ടുകാരികളും
തീ പകർന്ന്, വലിച്ചു. അമ്പലപ്രാവുകളായി വരുടെ കളിചിരിയലകൾ
തെരുവിനെയാകെ വലം വച്ച്
അവിടെത്തന്നെ പറന്നിറങ്ങി.
THURSDAY MARKET
This street, which until a moment ago,
Was crowding and thronging, clinging and
clanging9.
ike the wrist of a Marathi lass,
How quickly cid it smash everything to
smithereens?
The Municipal vehicles had left just now
ATter driVing away all the
Roadside hawkers.
tis nothing new
For this Thursday market.
n the twisted lane that
xtends to the back of the tattered street,
PercheS a tea snop
AS IT reaGy to Jump and run at any moment,
A DISCuit tin is cut and put around
The three sides oT the stove
To protect its flame
In the copper yessel on it
Mixed with milk, sugar, cardamom and ginger,
A masala tea boils over.
The tea shop man
Keeps stirring it, and once in a while
Pours some onto nis palm to see it t is ready.
waiting for the tea, one among the beauties
Strains to light a cigarette from the stove,
And then, her friends light their cigarettes from
it and smoke.
Their chatter and laughter,
Like temple doves,
Circle above the whole street
And then alight there itself.
( poetry series-1)
Rivers of Sorrow
A night with no electricity.
Sitting on the terrace,
Called my girl friend..
She is busy even at midnight.
Cleaning and wiping
Picking and putting things in order
Washing, bathing
Feeding her mother
Cleaning dishes
Endless, her odd jobs
Away, through the middle of the slums
Flows a black river.
A river of sorrow
That doesn't at all reflect
The lights from both sides
Or the hubbub/clamor around
Somewhere on its banks
Her room!
translation by Cs. Venkiteswaran
T K Muraleedharan
I have been living in Mumbai city for the last 25 years, designing hand-painting for garments. Somewhere along the line, the garments turned into canvases. Churidars, dhupats, sarees, kidswear.. a city that evolved through dresses was revealed to me. If in garments, you draw what the customer wants, when they turn into canvases I could draw whatever I felt like.
My workshop is the long corridor of this city, a gully where blood, sweat, oil and grease all mix and flow. The days, nights and people slip through this..
One can describe my scribbles and doodles as the efforts or ways adopted by a tiny drop in this ocean of people to reclaim and reinscribe itself. It happens in the most spontaneous and unbiased manner, like a fish coming upto the surface of the water to breathe air and plunging back to its depths.
The choice of garments is intricately linked to each individual’s choice of colours, design etc. Many people with no apparent or even distant connections with painting or art, are very smart when it comes to choice of dress. That color sense alone is enough for them to go to any gallery and appreciate art.
The city that streams through many a colorful costume has always inspired me. I have seen my mother’s ‘chiffon saree’[i] turning into a garden full of flowers, where we children play, eat and sleep, and in the end, as we sweat our way through the urban jungle, the same chiffon saree flowing past the pale canvas of the city sky.. It must the same design sense that ‘weaves with the threads of rain, the borders of the foaming river’[ii]
It was the great South African artist William Kentridge who prompted me to think about the equal importance of what we say and the material we use to say it. He expressed the sufferings and resilience of a society with the bold and rough strokes of charcoal. Marlene Dumas, another artist from South Africa, Anselm Keifer (German), and Thomas Hirschhorn(Switzerland), who exposes the vacuity behind the consumer culture of a ‘developed’ society like the Swiss, are some of my favourite artists, whose list is endless..
The city is always there inside me like a labyrinth, with its endless corridors of light and darkness, and the ever-spiraling staircases that lure human crowds into its vortex. Or else, it is a gigantic machine, chaotic and dysfunctional, that offers no specific permutations or possible combinations. The species called the city-man, who alights from an electric train, travels in an auto rikshaw, reaches office, and turns into an exact and functional cog of the machine - as a nut or bolt, or a tiny little ‘chip’......
[i] Title of my poem
[ii] ‘Azhalnadikal’ – My Poem
Tk.Muraleedharan
Born in 1972, Malappuram Dist.,Kerala
Solo show: FIX2009, Hirji Jahangir Art Gallery, Mumbai.
Second show 2012, Jahangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
Machinoscapes 2013, Durbar Hall, Ernakulam Kerala.
Dry Depictions 2015, Jahangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
Malayalam poetry collection:
Netravati 2005
Azhalnadikal 2015
