TRANSLATED FROM THE HINDI BY MOULINATH GOSWAMI 

ONLY A LITTLE HOPE IS NEEDED

Just like sun rays
shimmering on the soil

Just like the taste
of moist rock in water

Like the restlessness in fish
on wet sand

Only a little hope is needed

Like the refrain of a song
that resonates inside the throat of one speechless
Like the frail thread of breath
stuck inside the lungs

Like the craving of an insect
glued to glass panes

Like the thirst
immersed in the abyss of a river

Only a little hope is needed

*****

FRIDA KAHLO

One

This human head
with which
she is playing
is her own

One hand abandons her
in one painting
She rushes to grip it –
the other hand
in another painting

The Aztec Gods crowd up
to watch her
play

There she is
teasing the Mother Goddess
There she is provoking
the household deities

That what she smears
painting after painting –
her own blood
she has to drink it all

She is not the one
to spare a drop
for the Gods

This is her obstinacy
a miniscule one

This human head
is an orb of sorrow
an orb of sorrowlessness

which she wants to shove
down the throats
of the hungry Gods

Two

She authors only one sentence all her life.

On her paintings. On broken backbones. Over the dead body of her child.
As she goes on writing it
her rings grow bigger, and clothes grandiose.
Crowds throng the streets of California.
No one understands
she is engrossed
in putting together her own solitary sentence.

I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return

This is the only sentence that she is able to write
with all its appropriate spellings and structure
at the end of the night …

Three

No one knows if death exists beyond her canvas or inside it.
No one knows if death stands alongside her keeping a watchful eye
or stares at her from her paintings
Irrespective of the painting that unfolds, death walks right inside it and lies down
If she tries to clear it off, death in turn lays her down right there.

This is a sport that both of them play. In an eternal picture. Them, shadow-sisters.

Also, read The Spy Who Loves Me by Indrani Datta translated from the Bengali by Rituparna Mukherjee, and published in the Antonym:

The Spy Who Loves Me— Indrani Datta

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