Manprasad Subba
From the snout of
a speech’s machinegun,
words are being fired
in the mid-square.
Sitting in the verandah of a city house,
I am watching people
walk to and fro.
A youthful pair – a boy and a girl,
are walking along,
with glowed countenances,
absorbed in talk.
A little up the street, in a shoe shop
an old woman
is buying shoes for her grandson, five or six.
Those shoes – gifts for a long trip.
The speech is boiling
in the mid-square
like water boiling with stone potatoes
inside the pot of famine.
Behold, there in the drugstore
people are thronging to buy medicines
as ever.
A similar crowd can be seen on the footpath
busy, selecting second-hand clothes.
A bus, carrying tourists,
is slowly moving towards the square.
The porters, listening to the speech until now,
rush after the bus to find work.
The hotel agents, who procure meals by procuring clients,
too have rushed into the bus!
Far away there, near a paan counter,
a young girl,
beautiful like a fresh pyrethrum blossomed this morning
is waiting for someone for a long time.
The man, who walked to the town
with a basketful of vegetables in the morning
is readying to go back, with a bag full of stuffs.
Fists are being pounded,
slogans are being aired
thundering the square.
Far away, at motor-stands and bus-stands,
the hopes of ‘see you’
are beautifully waving in every hand
like on all other days.
And, how gracefully
the ear-rings of that lady
hastily rushing home from office
are swaying!
And how delightfully, like a wave,
are the locks of a little girl
skipping on the roof of a building
swinging back and forth !
Now, I enter the house.
I read Meghdoot once again.
I write a letter too.
I write the sighs of love
lighting the lamp of belief.
Thawing with beliefs alone,
I have treated all wounds of betrayal.
No, I am never done with
listening to stories of love!