Two Poems by Mandarapu Hymavathy - Syamala Kallury

Telugu: Mandarapu Hymavathi English: Kallury Syamala 1 Kunti I n the garden of youth The nectar-like fruits of experiences We ate together, partners in crime But, the burden of pregnancy The wound of childbirth, mine alone When punishment is meted out to one The pointing finger of accusation Aimed at me only The flow of Ganges The banks of waves The hospital surroundings Orphanage entrances Drainage water Thorny bushes All- all are for infants Beds of arrows After satisfying body's thirst The drops of left-over sperms Brushed off by fathers Not saying a single word The society pretends unseeing The obvious With no hatred The boon the Rishi gave In appreciation of services rendered Becomes the bite of a snake As unwed mother The entire world Including her own son Hated the one woman Kunti, the unfortunate one With raw wounds in her heart Either the Rishi who gave the boon Of children to an unwed virgin, Or the witness of all things, The Sun- God appearing on invitation With pleased hands of rays were Not the culprits But her childish fickle-minded Had become a life-time's curse Not just then, but now also For generations, my inheritors The girls who were caught In the net of love's deceit To flow like rivers of love To surrender the flower-like bodies Has always been our crime The mothers deprived of The flower of compassion not touched The mothers whose love has not felt The scent of motherhood When they write about them In national headlines or Show them in bold letters on small screens In a society's double standards In the world's Manu's scripts The needle on balance of right and wrong Tilts towards the woman While in an age of innocent childhood The toys they played with for a while They keep them safely, as they Cannot throw them away Then how can any grown woman Throw away the infant Who has been part of her Blood of her blood Cell amongst her cells Body within her body Who has taken birth The smallest bird Whose two wings have not blossomed She cannot abandon But cannot keep and breast-feed either Hundreds of seasons- of sorrows Surround her all at once and No poet can ever describe in words With wet breast though In sympathy she cannot sign in acceptance She moulds the tender babies Into huge warrior trees 'I lived all my life as long as I can Like a temple tower.' The Ugly Picture Among the pair of Krauncha birds One has lost its companion She, left alone was a personified melancholy Naggings or taunts Whatever the bond that kept them Together for decades, snapped She was drowned in a well of sorrow The raw wounds rubbed afresh by people Who came to visit. The flood of tears underneath her eye-lids threatens To break the barriers She was like a goddess Turmeric smeared, kumkum applied Bangles on her hands And flowers in her hair She was a sacrificial animal She was a violent picture Of an animal about to be sacrificed Barbaric age Or modern times Fundamental norms have not changed Manu died long ago Male centric traditions of dharma prevail still In the atomic age where victories are the norm The iron shackles of rituals Tighten around the woman's neck Like the sorrow of the new widow Darkness surrounds Without a single woman witnessing She goes to the stream in a Carriage with curtains drawn all around She is coming! She is coming! Close the doors Do not look even by mistake Next minute you too will become a widow For a woman it is more important to have Her turmeric and kumkum than have her life Even when one is drenched In the whirlpool of tears The words like whiplash Enter the ears faintly Leaving burn marks on the mind Only the hearts still alive Turn into stones Hell is here, nowhere else The daughter you loved More than life The siblings who always Share your joys and sorrows Runaway as if at a spotted snake Just by the sin of one glance The tilak on your forehead Would be erased, or so the fear That makes people move away. She cannot go to A neighbour's house even She remains in a room Closed on three sides Where even the God of breeze Deserts her company Every single minute Tightens as of a hangman's noose No Chitragupta can keep A count of the sorrows she lived through For not fulfilling a wifely duty As mind responded just one minute Society's double standards Cause heads to behead For the crime of being born a woman She had to stay in a dark room Without windows And as they would see animals in a zoo Or a strange object in a museum One by one as they come and go Subjecting her to torture as Meat broken to pieces on a piece of wood A sadistic pleasure that breaks The mind to pieces Wife's funeral pyre as witness The husband becomes a new groom soon They erase her tilak Rob her of all happiness Break the bow of her rainbow And stamp her as an inauspicious The woman they see everyday But on that day After the barred moments are over, Gathering courage, she peeps out Of her house. Then in white sari and blouse Tilak made of sacred ash She was an ugly picture Drawn by religion! * Mandarapu Hymavathy is a leading poet in modern time in Telugu literature writing on feminist issues. Her poetry touches the conscience of the reader rather than provoking the anger and indignation on gender issues like human rights violations and domestic violence on women.
Post Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2023 22:19:22 +0000
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