The heroine speaks to her friend, within her lover's hearing, with the intent of explaining to him why she had failed to meet him the previous evening when he came to see her. She said:
Day had turned to night
and the rain, relentless
was lashing down hard enough
to make a ghost squint.
On top of that
our mother was there
embracing her little boy
with his necklace of tiger's teeth,
saying: 'There, there, dear child.'
Meanwhile
he whose chest is scented
with the sandal paste
of his mountain home
was standing nearby
like a rain-drenched elephant.
Oh pity!
what became of him after that?
(161)
He said:
Well bless you, jasmin, bless you!
(162)
She said:
On these broad shores,
(163)
His mistress said:
(164)
He said:
Like one who,
(165)
Her friend said:
This town of Mantai
(166)
Her foster mother said:
Mashing the thick curd
(167)
He said:
Her fair dark body
(168)
She said:
These bright white teeth,
(169)
She said:
They are saying all kinds of things;
(170)
She said:
See now, my friend
(171)
She said:
In this desolate eventide
(172)
He said:
The bells around its neck
(173)
She said:
Not thinking
(174)
She said:
I do not pine
(175)
Her friend said:
It wasn’t just one day he came
(176)
Her friend said:
The ocean has fallen still,
(177)
Her friend said to her husband:
You remind me of girls
(178)
Her friend said:
In this desolate eventide,
as many creatures return to their homes
across the broad well-watered woodlands
over which the clouds stand guard,
you have formed your little white buds
into a smile –
is it right then
that you should make fun
in this way
of those who are so lonely?
fringed with groves of trees
where storks who feed on fish,
are scattered about
reminding me of those flocks
of small-headed white goats
from the land of Puzhi,
your roar can be heard
even in night's dense blackness
as your waves crash against the screwpines
with their white flowers.
Who is it, Ocean,
that has caused such pain to you?
It is out of pure ignorance
that his wife slanders me.
To the east of this hill town,
ruled over by an ancient line of chieftains,
– where the mate of the cutlass fish
with his rounded spike,
young and swollen with eggs
snaps up sweet fruit,
fallen from the mango tree's clusters –
lies the vast cold ocean.
If I have behaved in any such way
toward that man,
may it swallow me up.
remembering the flush of drink,
drinks again, unthinkingly,
the desire you felt before
has been quickened,
and you burn
at the sight of her many dark braids
which bear the marks of natural beauty.
You are like a cart laden with salt,
stuck on a steep bank,
whose cargo is ruined
in a heavy downpour of rain.
where white-winged storks,
disturbed
by the cold sea's breaking waves,
take flight in ranks
and fly off
to hunt for tiny fish
elsewhere,
used to be a nice enough place –
but now
it has become a place of suffering
for one who dwells there
all alone.
with fingers soft as kantal petals,
she does not stop to wash them
as she ties up
her freshly-washed sari.
Cooking smoke
fills her eyes, darkened with kohl,
and looking like water lilies.
But when her husband eats
the fragrant curry
she has prepared and cooked,
and says
how delicious it is,
her face and clear forehead
light up
with pure delight.
is fresh and fragrant,
like a green basket –
woven from the tender young leaves
of the dark palymra,
and stuffed full
of the plump rain-drenched
buds of the pitchy flower –
which, in the early morning,
bursts open and scatters about
under the monsoon's heavy downpour.
Her shoulders, slender as bamboo,
glide like a boat on the water.
I can neither embrace them
nor be separated from them.
And were I to depart from here,
to live at all
would be equally impossible.
which were wont to laugh,
my Lord, along with you,
may they snap right off
all of a sudden
like an elephant's tusk
when it strikes
at the parched desert rocks.
Like the stinking pot
into which fishermen
throw their fish,
freshly-caught,
My life has become
an object of disgust
even to me.
Let it too snap off
for you shall never be mine.
well, let them.
They do not know
this love of my lover
from the mountain country –
where an elephant
bathing in a tank
makes of meal
of fresh-eared rushes
washed down by the stream –
is never-ending;
that is what I know.
It's just like when wild animals
are caught up in the fishing nets
set in the broad tank
when the fresh floods
rush swiftly in
filling its banks.
This business with strangers,
what's the point of it all?
as the bats,
flitting lightly
on fine silky wings,
seek out the big old trees,
could he who left us here
to our loneliness
be any happier than we,
out there all alone?
Like a bellows
attached to a forge,
set up in a single village
to do all the work for seven,
it knows no end,
this ache in my heart.
will ring out loud
as I mount my palmyra steed,
adorned with a garland
of golden avirai flowers,
strand upon strand
of newly-opened blooms,
thickly woven.
And as the pain in my heart
fills my thoughts,
destroying my shame,
growing stronger and stronger,
I shall cry out,
‘This is all her doing!'
And the people of this place
will spread the tale of the wickedness
of her who stands here before me.
I'm already on my way,
for that's my only hope now.
there would be hardship
out in the lonely desert
where no cloud drops its rain,
on the arduous path
where a pair of doves,
with dense, soft feathers,
take to the air, startled
by the loud crack
of a fruit bursting open
on a kalli bush
with its forking thorns,
he deserted me.
If the thought of riches
could make even him leave,
then, in this world, only wealth
can be of any account.
Compassion, to be sure,
means nothing to anyone.
for my Lord of the dark ocean
on whose firm shores,
compacted by the onslaught
of powerful waves,
stand punnai trees,
the newly-opened blossoms
on their great wet branches
attracting in swarms
winged multitudes
eager for fresh nectar.
So don’t keep asking me
what’s the matter,
dear friend,
so that even more people notice.
What will be, will be.
What is their gossip to us?
nor was it two.
So many days he came,
with words so full of respect
that they melted my good heart.
But then he went away,
crushed
like one of those honeycombs
that ripen on the mountainside.3
He was like my father
a comfort to all –
but where is he now?
Like the rain beating down
amidst claps of thunder
upon the fair fields
of some foreign land,
my heart is filled with tears.
the groves stand as if enchanted,
and the darkened shore-line
with its harbours and inlets
has been drained of its beauty.
He will come, for certain
my friend, this very night
as the nightingale
in the village meeting-place
calls softly
from the beautiful frond
of the palymra tree
where it spends its days.
Even the slightest tiff
used to fill him
with the fear of being parted,
he who bears a love
which brooks no separation.
plucking the water-lilies,
which gracefully raise their blossoms
on sturdy, hollow stems,
in the lake’s sweet cool waters,
with minnows darting here and there –
how they suffer from thirst,
even standing in the water.
And even though you lie
against her breast,
still you tremble with desire.
In those days when to be with us
was for you a difficult thing –
like the crescent moon, worshipped
whenever it appears –
how you must have suffered!
It hurts me to think of it.
Day has turned to night
and your hounds
have grown tired,
chasing a wild cow
in the echoing jungle.
Do not leave, my Lord.
On the high mountainside,
where stands of green bamboo
grow up piercing
the sweet honeycombs,
there’s a gap
where the stems
have been broken off
by a simple grazing elephant
with its great mouth,
and that’s our village –
you can see it,
just there, over the top of them.