Poems of T. P Rajivan
à´Ÿി.à´ªി à´°ാà´œീവന്à´±െ à´•à´µിതകൾ
A Yaksha in America
Yaksha: I am a Yaksha and this lake belongs to
me. What is water? Tell me the answer and only after that you can drink the
water.
Yudhisthira: Sky is the water.
-From the Mahabharata
You may be
asleep now.
Not only you,
Our fathers,
mothers, children
Brothers,
neighbours, enemies
Our dogs, cats,
cows
And the dead we
imagine
On the stones in
the southern yard
Also may be
asleep.
Our continent
Our country
Our language
Our shrines,
graveyards,
Our bazaars,
bathing ghats
Our martyrs’
tombs
Our parliament
Our ministers,
priests, poets,
Our
revolutionaries, prophets
All may be in
darkness.
Tonight too
You may have
forgotten
All that you
forget before you go to bed.
There might be
leftovers on the table,
Water dripping
from the toilet tap,
The fan in the
sitting room rotating simply,
A midnight movie
playing on the T V for nobody,
The front window
open,
By which, your
unconsciousness may be saying,
A light or a
shadow is passing.
Now, you may be
turning to the other side
Chiding me for
coming late as usual;
Though asleep,
you are careful to keep your gown tidy.
I’m now on the
other side of the earth though
I can touch you
now
I can close the
book that remains open on your bosom
Switch off the
song that glides over you.
Continents,
mountains, the great oceans,
Strange customs
and the unknown languages
Were between us
Only when we
were lying close
Touching each
other.
At Madison
Square
I met a baby
squirrel yesterday.
It hasn’t heard
about our Vedas or the Epics,
It hasn’t read
the Kamasutra, Arthasastra or the Natyasastra
It doesn’t know
Vivekananda, Gandhi, or Jawaharlal Nehru
But, it knows
you
It can
understand our language.
Not only it,
The snow in
Chicago
The rain in Iowa
The cold wind in
Virginia
The trees on the
Mississippi
All speak our
language.
Now, sleep may have
crossed the border of our country
It may be moving
the route through which
Alexander, the
lame Timur, Vasco de Gama and Viceroys came;
The Arabian
deserts may be half asleep now
Europe may be
readying for sleep.
A few moments
from now on
When you get rid
of morning hangovers
I too will have
slept;
But this pain,
From which
province of my body or mind it originates,
I don’t know,
Will remain
awake
Even then.
Vasco da Gama
(1460-1524)
The harbour I set sail from
May not be there now.
The grey granite-laid alleys
The old streets smelling of pickled radish
The tall arched doors opening to them
The thin, endless frills
The midnight's music and dance behind them
too.
The temples I have prayed in
Might have turned into cemeteries
My prayers there might be growing as cactus
My gods will not understand my sorrows
anymore.
My children are orphans in nameless
countries
In their eyes, are depths
Deep enough to drown me to death.
I have to set off on another voyage
To discover my own country.
I am not scared of giant sharks and pirates
I have no fear of killer waves and
sea-ghosts
My compass never errs
My ship will never hit any rock.
But I can't stand
That solitary star following me from the
very start
This candle that no wind can put out
This mast standing as always
This sail reluctant to drop down
And this silence the sea heaps up at the
bottom.
When I step in
Sand grains rise like virgins
The sea enters my blood
The night anchors in my flesh
And the cavalry of desires
Walk me blindfolded
Through the bottomless marshes.
I never land in the continents
I want to discover.
I am a mariner
Who died in a shipwreck that didn't happen
Who prefers to believe he is not born
yet.
Between the ends of peninsulas
Unmarked in history,
And the fingertips
Absent in life;
I remain
The remains of innumerable shipwrecks
No one knows about.
r/e/c/y/c/l/i/n/g
Beware them
who come asking
for old shoes.
Wearing them one
by one
from the big to
the small
they will walk
along the path you walked once,
like crossing a
lake stepping over lotus-leaves,
turning into a
gnome in each step.
Memories, like
water weeds
won't loop around
their legs
as around yours,
nor will
forgetfulness, like whirls
will drown them
as they did you.
Straight, they
will reach your demolished house.
Rummaging the
refuses,
they will pick
out washed-out plates
and emptied
bottles,
and eat and
drink from them-
all would be
unopened till then.
They will reach
down the books
read long back
and stacked in the garret,
and open them-
all would be
unpublished till date.
They will carry
the broken chairs
dumped in the
backyard,
and sit down on
them-
all would turn
warehouse-new.
They will take
the tattered shirts
kept in the
wardrobe for beggars and refugees,
and put on them-
all would smell
fresh cotton.
The clocks
stilled in the closed-rooms
at various times
will strike:
one, two, three,
four.....
Past the embryos
of shoes
that lie either
in the corridors
or under the
staircases,
their thorny
legs
will fall on
your pulsating
head.
Beware them
who come asking
for old shoes.
Prologue to autobiography
I had a dream
The day before I was born
In it, my father was sculpting a sun image in stone
By the banks of a river that the mountains had called back
In an island not known in which sea it was
Mother was dancing in the streets of a city
Which is a dense forest now
Father was burnt alive in the forest fire
Sparked off from the stone chisel,
Mother was drowned to death
In the deluge spread out from a sweat drop
Scattered from her anklet
God had kept me in a Chinese jar
Which we used to pickle in tender mangoes
At our house now non-existent by the paddy field
Along with a grain of paddy
A measure of darkness, a centipede
And a star
The granny who killed herself swallowing a diamond
Scared of Tippu Sultan’s onslaught told me stories
And a butterfly that caught in spider web
The day the Simon Commission came to India
Drew me pictures
It was that dream my mother gave birth to
The next morning.
Thachom Poyil Rajeevan (28 June 1959 – 2 November 2022) was an Indian novelist and poet originally from Palery who wrote in Malayalam and English languages.
In Malayalam, Rajeevan published two novels (Paleri Manikyam: Oru Pathirakolapathakathinte Katha, and KTN Kottoor: Ezhuthum Jeevithavum); six poetry collections (Vathil, Rashtratamtram, Korithachanal, Vayalkkarayil Ippolillatha, Pranayasatakam, and Dheergakalam); a travelogue (Purappettu Poya Vakku); and an essay collection (Athe Akasam Athe Bhoomi.
Both of his novels in Malayalam were made into films.
Rajeevan wrote Paleri Manikyam first in English when residing in Iowa, United States, in 2009. He translated it into Malayalam after coming back to Kerala. However, the English version, titled Undying Echoes of Silence, only appeared in August 2013.
Rajeevan was awarded the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel KTN Kottor: Ezhuthum Jeevithavum, in 2014.
In English, he published Undying Echoes of Silence and two poetry collections (Kannaki and He Who Was Gone Thus).
Rajeevan also edited an anthology of poems (Third Word: Post Socialist Poetry) with Croatian poet, Lana Derkac.
(Courtesy to Wikipedia)