The Mango-Man Poem by Kamarudheen Amayam

He has not seen the Taj Mahal
Probably never heard of it even.
At dawn, he starts with the mango basket
And returns only by dusk,
Having scraped away an entire childhood
Along with the scalding sap of mango stalks.

Late one evening he came home
Carrying a girl in the emptied basket.
And what kind of a girl?
A ripe, red, juicy mango

Seems the branches whispered,
Whatever gets caught by the hook pole
Is never to be shaken out.

There ended the wanderings
With the pole and the basket.
In the peremboke land near the house
A ramshackle shop was put up,
Which sold toffees, salted mangoes,
Gooseberries and sarsaparilla sherbet.

The girl borne home in a basket
Bore a basketful of kids.
By the time they grew and made their way in life,
She was gone.

With the money his son gave
For a second marriage,
He built a waiting shed for travelers,
In the name of his wife.

After regularly sweeping clean
The shed and the surroundings,
And watering the plants around,
He sat with his eyes glued to
The red letters that spelt
His wife's name
On the board.

And when our loves started sprouting moustaches,
We took him on as our ustad.

The day you heard of the authorities
Planning to dismantle the shed
To widen the road,
Why did you lie there and die
Broken-hearted?

Was it to get people to say that
Proving one's love to one's beloved
Is not through building monuments,
But by courting death?
And thus to devalue Shajahan?
After all, was he not an emperor?
And you?

Translated from Malayalam by: Dr. MV Narayanan