Neera, sometimes, it seems
you are more distant
than even the day I was born.
...

With ease I make a million flowers bloom,
All at once I light up some suns, moons, stars,
In a passing whim I blow out the moonlight
...

This hand has touched Neera's face,
could I use this hand to commit a sin,
ever again?
In the late evening glow
...

This golden figurine- oh dear, will she ceaselessly crumble away,
In the night, in the sun, in the rain in the arms of another man?
Her nipples two bared switches,- switches? Hands tremble at their touch.
...

I once spat into the sea:
no one saw me, no one knew—
The froth of the impassioned waves
swept away my spit.
Yet sometimes I am embarrassed, after so many years I can hear
the sea curse me.

On the mail train's body I once chalked
a woman's profile:
no one saw me, no one knew—
in fact even the stars in her eyes were not there.
Before the train could cross a single station, impassioned rains came—
perhaps my sketch was washed away.
Yet sometimes I am embarrassed, after so many years I can hear
the mail train curse me.

When I walk the road every day, do I trample its heart?
When I catch a woman's nipple with my teeth, am I brutalising her?
Sipping wine on wintry mornings
do I represent an exploitative class interest?
Is it a sin to embrace Saraswati's idol in the first flush of adolescence?
I am still not sure about such things.
Yet I can distinctly hear
the sea and the mail train curse me.


Translated by Pritish Nandy.
...