‘Fearless, You Cannot Be My Prey’
Savithri Rajeevan As You Bathe Your Mother As you bathe your mother be mindful as with a child. Let the body not slip from your hands let the water be mildly warm Do not lather that body softened by time with the heady fragrance of soaps. Nor let the eyes hurt. On her arms Which bathed and beautified you You won’t find the bangles you played with Nor will you hear their tinkling laugh. That old ring which bore your tender bites will have slipped off her finger long long ago. But Now, on mother’s arms Countless pleats bangles of wrinkles shine with remembrance Seven or seventy or seven thousand, the colours on them? Don’t trouble to count Just close your eyes touch, gently caress that tender body soft smooth in water’s mild warm flow. Then those wrinkles memory-filled will unfold Mother will slowly stretch her arms and bathe you again Steeped in oil and cleansing herbs you will keep emerging washed limpid, clean. Then in return give your mother one of the kisses she gave you. As you bathe your mother, as with a child… (Translated from Malayalam by P. Udaya Kumar) *** In the Lion’s Cage (In memory of Kamala Das- Madhavikkutty) Today is the exam day: the day when questions line up in uniform and stare at you. The cheerless girl told her friend : “Let us go to the zoo.” They erased the question paper from their mind and went straight to the zoo. Deer, peacock, hare, camel, leopard, donkey, rhino, tiger : none asked them questions, not even the ant-eater or the horn-bill. So the girl and her friend regained their cheer. At last they reached the cage of the king of animals. The lion was resting, its mane loose, its fiery eyes aglow, a plate of red meat before him. “His majesty is not a veggie,” said the girl, “The Lord seems to love you so much as to gobble you up at one go: see, he is looking at you.” “ Can I open this unlocked door?” asked the little friend, “Will you enter the cage?” The girl agreed. “He will put you on that plate and eat you.” “The lion has already had his lunch and is taking rest ; he won’t eat me”, the girl was confident. She then entered the cage interrupting the lion’s post-lunch repose. Fear, afraid, stood outside. It locked the door of the cage. The lion with his unkempt mane moved towards the girl gently like a hermit woken from his meditation. He stopped to gather the swooning child in his paws and touched her softly. Then he tenderly licked the girl’s cheeks, her nose and her back, caressed her long on her ears with his nose and went back to his plate as if to continue his broken meditation. The girl came out of the cage and began walking to her school. Her friend, trembling, asked her: “What did the lion whisper in your ears?” “ ‘Fearless, you cannot be my prey’, that is what the lion said, and that it likes the fearless child.” The girl smiled. The questions for the coming exam, and their answers, opened before her one by one like the golden hairs on the lion’s mane. ( Translated from Malayalam by K. Satchidanandan) *** The Lone Wound He just called her ‘moonface’; she pressed her cheeks to his shoulders And there, she tripped and fell straight into the stream, not even a screw-pine’s prickle or stem to entangle her. to see him on the tree with her undone robes, gone in a single dip, that decade when she was born. winking and smiling and coquetting sweetly : She went down and came up fast playing that famous flute. She was sad the sixties were gone, For now she no more remembered how to hide her breasts in her hair, to be thrilled by his flute song , a hymn to her full breasts , to swim as if in River Kalindi, and to stand under the tree, ‘Give me back my robes…’ No; instead there she goes refusing to cringe and flirt for her robes, or to hear his tempting song, stark naked, her shame covered only by the bruises like a tree in autumn, the screw-pine had made and the blood oozing from them, scarlet like Durga’s silken vest. There she goes, nude, split right in the middle, a solitary wound. (Translated from Malayalam by K. Satchidanandan ) *** Skin Disease Your body looks like an ancient wall painting, burnt and peeled off : the mirror told her. There is light in the pink and pale brown, and shade in the bluish blister Which country’s secret picture-code has been painted on you- Altamira, Egypt, Greco-Roman, could be of any land, so ancient is your body, thin, peeled off. A deer writhes on a spear behind your scaly palm and on your shoulder, a wild buffalo, grey, shot down by an arrow. Don’t erase them: researchers will need to discover them in future. That Greek beauty on your thigh, filling her basket with flowers: her arms reach your knee her fingers holding a pale white flower. She wants nothing short of a bison to ride, that pitch black beast bellowing on your breast. Nourish it with grass and hay: don’t undo it with your steroids. Stand straight, don’t bend, the mirror told her. Let your arms dangle in front, but tilt your face a little. Chest, belly, the whole brownish trunk , let all of them face me . But tilt the legs and the feet a little. If you can, look at me with both your eyes. Keep close to the wall. Now this is no more your body, its skin peeled off : you have turned into a painting , a pre-historic mural. (Translated from Malayalam by K. Satchidanandan) *** Leaving Home Leaving my home, I must have walked barely sixteen yards, and there, my home comes chasing