I Won't Let You Go (20 page)

Unknown to me is the moment when I passed

through life’s lion-carved gateway into this world’s

magnificent mansion. What power was it

that opened me in this immense mystery’s lap

like a bud in a vast forest in the middle of the night?

Yet when, in the morning, I lifted my head high,

opened my eyes and looked upon this earth,

arrayed in blue cloth spangled with golden rays,

and saw this world’s ways, studded with pleasures and pains,

in an instant did this unknown, unbounded

mystery seem as entirely familiar

as my mother’s breast, very much mine.

Unmanifest, beyond cognition, this awesome power

has, to my eyes, assumed the shape of a mother.

Nor do I know death. Today at times

I’m shivering with fear of it. When I think

I have to bid adieu to this world, my eyes moisten

and with both arms I try to hang on to life,

calling it mine.

                 Fool, who had made this life, this

world, unawares to yourself, so much your own,

from the moment of your birth, even before

your own volition? Thus at death’s dawn

you’ll see once more the face of that unknown

and instantly recognise it. I have loved

my life so dearly that I am convinced

when I meet death, I shall love it just as much.

Removed from one breast, a child cries in alarm,

but given the other breast, is immediately calmed.

No, no, she’s no longer in my house!

I’ve looked in every corner. Nowhere to be found!

In my house, Lord, there’s such precious little space –

what goes away from it cannot be retraced.

But your house is infinite, all-pervasive,

and it’s there, Lord, I’ve come to look for her.

Here I stand, beneath this evening sky,

and look at you, tears streaming from my eyes.

There’s a place from where no face, no bliss,

no hope, no thirst can ever be snatched from us.

It’s there I’ve brought my devastated heart,

so you can drown, drown, drown it in that source.

Elixir of deathlessness no longer in my house –

may I recover its touch in the universe!

A few old letters I found –

a handful of tokens

belonging to love-drugged life,

memory’s toys, which with such particular care

and secrecy you had hoarded in your room.

From mighty time’s destructive deluge

which sweeps away so many suns and moons

you had in dread stolen these few trifles

and hidden them, saying to yourself,

‘No one else has a right to these riches of mine.’

And who is going to look after them today?

They belong to nobody, yet they exist.

As your affection had guarded them once,

isn’t anyone guarding you likewise today?

If I wasn’t your little boy,

but just a puppy-dog,

would you tell me off,

lest I tried to taste

rice from your dinner-plate?

Tell me truly,

don’t trick me, Mum!

Would you say, ‘Off, off, off!

Whence has it come, this dog?’

Then go, Mum, go.

Let me get off your lap.

I won’t eat from your hand,

I won’t eat from your plate.

If I wasn’t your little boy,

but just a parrot, your pet,

would you chain me, Mum,

lest I should fly away?

Tell me truly,

don’t trick me, Mum!

Would you say, ‘Wretched bird!

He wants to escape, does he?’

Then let me get off, Mum.

You don’t have to love me any more.

I don’t want to stay on your lap,

I’d rather go off to the forest.

    Mum, why do you look so upset?

    Don’t you want to take your boy on your lap?

Feet stretched out in a corner of the room,

just sitting, so lost in your thoughts, –

    you haven’t even plaited your hair yet.

Why open the window? What d’you want to see?

It’s raining. You’re getting your head wet.

    Your clothes will be splashed with mud.

D’you hear that? It’s four o’ clock!

End of school. My brother’ll be back.

    You don’t seem to remember that!

It’s getting late.

What’s the matter today?

    Haven’t you had a letter from Dad?

From his bag the postman

left a letter for everyone,

    why not one from Dad every day?

He keeps ’em in his bag

to read ’em himself.

    The postman’s very smart, a crafty beggar!

    Listen, Mum, you just take my advice.

    Don’t you worry about that any more.

Tomorrow’s market day.

Just ask the maid

    to get some paper and a pen.

You’ll see, I’ll make no mistakes;

from
ka
and
kha
to cerebral
na

    I’ll write Dad’s letter for him, I promise!

Come on, Mum, what’s the meaning of that smile?

You think, don’t you, I can never write

    as good a hand as Dad can?

I’ll draw the lines first,

then the rest big and neat.

    When you see it, you won’t believe it!

When the letter’s written,

d’you think I’d be silly

    like Dad and put it in the bag?

Never! Myself

I’ll read it out to you,

    for they don’t deliver good letters.

If I played a naughty trick on you, Mum,

    and flowered as a champa on a champa tree,

and at sunrise, upon a branch,

    had a good play among the young leaves,

then you’d lose, and I’d be the winner,

for you wouldn’t recognise me.

    You’d call, ‘Khoka, where are you?’

        I’d just smile quietly.

All jobs you do in the morning

   I’d watch with my eyes wide open.

After your bath, damp hair loose on your back,

   you’d walk this way, under the champa tree.

From here you’d go to the chapel

and smell flowers from afar –

   you wouldn’t know that it was

       the smell of your Khoka’s body in the air.

At noontime, when everyone’s had their lunch,

   you’d sit down, the
Mahabharat
in your hands.

Through the window the tree’s shade

   would fall on your back, on your lap.

I’d bring my little shadow close to you

and sway it softly on your book –

   you wouldn’t know that it was

       your Khoka’s shadow moving before your eyes.

In the evening you’d light a lamp

   and go to the cow-shed, Mum.

Then would I, my flower-play done,

   fall down plonk on the ground.

Once again I’d become your little boy,

go up to you and say, ‘Tell me a story.’

   You’d say, ‘Naughty! Where have you been all day?’

       I’d say, ‘I’m not telling you that!’

Like a musk-deer

maddened by my own scent,

a maniac, I roam

from forest to forest.

The south wind blows

upon a night of Phalgun.

I quite lose

my power of orientation.

What I want

I want by mistake.

What I get

I do not want at all.

My desire – it flies out

from my breast.

Like a mirage

it shifts from place to place.

I want to hug

and press it against my chest,

but never again

does it return to my breast.

What I want

I want by mistake.

What I get

I do not want at all.

My flute – it wants

to hang on to its own song,

like one deranged, gone

totally off the rails.

But what is caught

and bound so fast, so fast –

from it, alas,

all melody evaporates.

What I want

I want by mistake.

What I get

I do not want at all.

O Mother, listen: the king’s darling son

    will ride past my room this very day!

How can I cope with housework

    this morning?

Tell me, please, how I should dress myself,

in which style my hair should be braided,

how my body should be draped

    and in which tint.

Ah, Mother, why do you look at me like that

    with such surprise?

I know too well he’ll never cast a glance

at the spot by my window where I’ll stand and bide.

It will all be over in the twinkling of an eye

    and to a distant city away he’ll ride.

Only from some field a minstrel-flute

    may play a wistful melody for a while.

Yet, knowing that the king’s darling son

    will ride past my room this very day,

what can I do but get myself dressed up

    just for that moment?