Translated from the Tamil by Dr.Amirtha Ganesan

A Letter Retrieved

Father,
I’ve gotten lost
Please don’t search for me…

Don’t post my picture
In TV magazine commercials…

“If brought home/
Whereabouts informed
There’s a handsome reward waiting”-
No announcement please.

Don’t call up the family
And sob together.

I’ve disappeared only to seek,
And find myself.

Till I find out all the joy there is
In getting lost.
___

Why doesn’t the night singer sing?

In the nights
Where kisses
Go to wrong addresses…

In the nights
Where doors
Wait for thieves,
He doesn’t sing.

In the nights
Where penalties
Wander searching for
Persons for enquiry…

In the nights
Where the noose is readied
Around the neck of
Sleeping justice,
He doesn’t sing.

In the nights
Where its own dead bones
Are pick’d…

In the nights
Where Truth
Goes to the house of lie
Carrying a bouquet…
He doesn’t sing.

In the nights
Where questions
Are hungry to deny replies…

In the nights
Where errors are born
With the purpose of
Rejecting corrections…
He doesn’t sing.

In the nights
That separate
A river from its waves…

In the nights
That distinguish
Between life and the living…
He doesn’t sing;
Indeed, he doesn’t.