By Krishna Dharabasi
Four years earlier, before taking leave of you
this poem of mine, O Century, is a gift to you.
Together we spent a hundred years, years of sufferings
joy of satisfaction, pleasure and happiness we had
amid calamities and trials stood we together, time and time again
we wept together with lumps at our throats.
ah, time does pass unheeded
just look behind, see how did we spend
a hundred years, we two together.
Even the very beginning, for us, had been a difficult one
besieged were the first two decades by war,
severing had we been our own limbs and casting them away,
filled with dreams of victory, we were
defeated again and again and died
scattered ourselves all over the world as festering wounds.
The voyage of the Twentieth Century that we began together
is floating on a pool of blood.
By the flames of revolution, said to have begun in every home,
men themselves are being swept away.
We know not how from among ourselves
like the eye of boil pressed out, a Hitler raised his head,
once again a war he declared.
At the explosion of Einstein alone in the beginning nobody knew
a whole city could come to dust,
only the beard of Einstein
could drink so much of blood.
Innumerable people died we say
as Israelites, as Palestinians,
as Americans, as Vietnamese,
as Chinese, as Japanese,
as Englishmen, as Indians,
all chanting the names of their enemies.
in the contest of saving their lives.
Eh, how could we come so far together, we two together.
The moon we reached, down we brought the sample soil,
every particle of the Martian soil we surveyed,
soared into the space, roiled along the surface of the earth,
for civilization new attire we have woven,
wiped out and drew anew many a line on the face of the earth,
we linked together the conceptions of new kinds of states,
but to the people of Amazon and the Congo Valley
we failed to provide clothing,
to the crying children in our neighborhood
we could give no bread.
But here again we
into the Golden Temple enter,
stand stubborn at the birthplace of Rama and the Babari Mosque,
at the gate of Pashupatinath Temple, we
scrutinize who are Hindus and who are not,
in Rwanda and Burundi we are the Hutus and the Tutus
keen in exterminating each other,
we are organized ourselves again
in castes, races and linages
he must not be let live but my life is inevitable,
with such thoughts in our mind
standing we are at the end of the precipice,
Four years before bidding good-bye to you,
O Century, a gift to you is this poem of mine.
These awfully stinking and all detestable pages of history
are all for you, for you.
all that this century could offer
the great and marvelous scientific achievements are all for you,
you do sing yourself the songs and hymns of Tagore,
I give to you,
for you museum, even Picasso’s paintings,
keep carefully the pieces of bricks of the torn-down Berlin Wall,
preserve the wounded story of the fragmented Russia,
the sufferings underwent by small countries like Kuwait,
iniquities committed against them by big countries like Iraq
are all for you.
I give to you
the injustice and repressions perpetrated by despots and dictators,
and you, you stay here as a year to be excavated ling after,
you stay here but like the vivid letters in a history book,
bring with you the countless wounds and
befriend As-wat-tha-ma, who has been plodding since
the days of the third age of this cycle of creation,
you two laugh together, cry together,
Over the past twenty-five hundred years
carried with great hardships and brought so far,
covered with lichen,
a burden on the shoulders of the Hinayanis and the Mahayains,
the image of Buddha too is given to you,
for your museum are
the torn and tattered the Protestant and the Catholic shoes
of Jesus Christ,
engage as your own servants
Allah’s warring brothers, the Shias and the Sunnis,
you yourself glue up
the age-worn Communist dreams of Marx and Lenin,
the empty drums of Democracy and Human Rights
you just play yourself,
Standing at the threshold of the Twenty-first Century,
before I depart from you,
O Century, this poem of mine I write to you.
I will dig them out tomorrow
the graves of dead bodies of mass-slaughter
you found no time o exhume
although buried are they in your time,
I will defuse tomorrow
those explosives hidden by you under the ground,
I will disclose and make widely known
the intrigues that you designed, your betrayals and your spells of enchantment
I will sing tomorrow
praises to the distresses you sustained.
Today in this flickering night when the faint candle is burning,
I am playing with the pen in my hand.
I do not feel like writing
the stories of this age with the blood of the Tamil people
so many have died yet the draining of blood is not exhausted,
the story of the smoke of the unwithheld explosions of gun-powder,
even after many an agreement signed,
the story of the Palestinian revolt
which Yasis Arafat’s turban failed to restrain,
Oh, the first moon of the Twentieth Century
how did you feel the gust of the first wind that had blown ?
And I am afraid to keep waiting
Eh, I shall experience the wind of the last night of the century,
Oh, how will it jostle me ?
Now after four years
the morning of a new century, on which I am to tread,
will there be a news to tell that no young-lady,
on the night that passed
died raped
on a bed, in a lane or hotel ?
Or will the morning come without a bomb, in the night, detonated ?
About these men who have now become synthetic,
will there be a possibility of news, in the morning of the day,
that no kidney of any abandoned child was stolen and sold,
or no big nation violated the border of a small one ?
O you, this age, O Century, O the fervency of the age.
Is it possible to have a day of the kind tomorrow ?
Before entering into an unknown and dark century.
Leaving behind this fear-infested Age right here,
an Age borne for a hundred years and accustomed to its ways,
My friends, O Century, O state of time,
this poem of mine is to you a gift.
Translated by Dan Khaling
[Krishna Dharabasi (b. 1967) is a poet, novelist, short story writer and theorist of high repute. He made his debut in writing in the early nineties, and has since then published series of poems, essays, short stories and novels. His novel Radha, won him Madan Puraskar, Nepal’s most prestigious literary award in 2005, and the work has also been translated into English. He is one of the leading theorists of Leela Lekhan, a post-structural theoretical school of thought, championed by Nepali critics. He lives with his family in Kathmandu.]