Creation and Criticism

“A.K. Ramanujan (1929–1993) was a renowned Indian poet, scholar, translator, and linguist whose work bridged classical Indian traditions and modern literary expression. Born in Mysore to a scholarly family, he studied at the University of Mysore and later earned a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. Ramanujan’s scholarly expertise spanned five languages— English, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Sanskrit, through which he explored folklore, classical texts, and regional dialects. A professor at University of Chicago, he published ground-breaking translations— The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology and Speaking of Śiva and essays like “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation.” His poetry, celebrated for its depth and lyrical subtlety, includes collections— The Striders, Relations, Selected Poems and Second Sight. Ramanujan was posthumously conferred the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999 for The Collected Poems (1997). His legacy endures through his contribution to Indian literature, translation studies, and cross-cultural scholarship.” — Abnish Singh Chauhan

1. A River

In Madurai,

city of temples and poets,

who sang of cities and temples,

every summer

a river dries to a trickle

in the sand,

baring the sand ribs,

straw and women's hair

clogging the water-gates

at the rusty bars

under the bridges with patches

of repair all over them

the wet stones glistening like sleepy

crocodiles, the dry ones

shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun

The poets only sang of the floods.

He was there for a day

when they had the floods.

People everywhere talked

of the inches rising,

of the precise number of cobbled steps

run over by the water, rising

on the bathing places,

and the way it carried off three village houses,

one pregnant woman

and a couple of cows

named Gopi and Brinda as usual.

The new poets still quoted

the old poets, but no one spoke

in verse

of the pregnant woman

drowned, with perhaps twins in her,

kicking at blank walls

even before birth.

He said:

the river has water enough

to be poetic

about only once a year

and then

it carries away

in the first half-hour

three village houses,

a couple of cows

named Gopi and Brinda

and one pregnant woman

expecting identical twins

with no moles on their bodies,

with different coloured diapers

to tell them apart.

2. Prayers To Lord Murugan

Lord of new arrivals

lovers and rivals:

arrive

at once with cockfight and banner—

dance till on this and the next three

hills

women's hands and the garlands

on the chests of men will turn like

chariot-wheels

O where are the cockscombs and where

the beaks glinting with new knives

at crossroads

when will orange banners burn

among blue trumpet flowers and the shade

of trees

waiting for lightings?

Twelve etched arrowheads

for eyes and six unforeseen

faces, and you were not

embarrassed.

Unlike other gods

you find work

for every face,

and made

eyes at only one

woman. And your arms

are like faces with proper

names.

III

Lord of green

growing things, give us

a hand

in our fight

with the fruit fly.

Tell us,

will the red flower ever

come to the branches

of the blueprint

city?

Lord of great changes and small

cells: exchange our painted grey

pottery

for iron copper the leap of stone horses

our yellow grass and lily seed

for rams!

flesh and scarlet rice for the carnivals

on rivers O dawn of nightmare virgins

bring us

your white-haired witches who wear

three colours even in sleep.

Lord of the spoor of the tigress,

outside our town hyenas

and civet cats live

on the kills of leopards

and tigers

too weak to finish what's begun.

Rajahs stand in photographs

over ninefoot silken tigresses

that sycophants have shot.

Sleeping under country fans

hearts are worm cans

turning over continually

for the great shadows

of fish in the open

waters.

We eat legends and leavings,

remember the ivory, the apes,

the peacocks we sent in the Bible

to Solomon, the medicines for smallpox,

the similes

for muslin: wavering snakeskins,

a cloud of steam

Ever-rehearsing astronauts,

we purify and return

our urine

to the circling body

and burn our faeces

for fuel to reach the moon

through the sky behind

the navel.

Master of red bloodstains,

our blood is brown;

our collars white.

Other lives and sixty-

four rumoured arts

tingle,

pins and needles

at amputees' fingertips

in phantom muscle

VII

Lord of the twelve right hands

why are we your mirror men

with the two left hands

capable only of casting

reflections? Lord

of faces,

find us the face

we lost early

this morning.

VIII

Lord of headlines,

help us read

the small print.

Lord of the sixth sense,

give us back

our five senses.

Lord of solutions,

teach us to dissolve

and not to drown.

Deliver us O presence

from proxies

and absences

from sanskrit and the mythologies

of night and the several

roundtable mornings

of London and return

the future to what

it was.

Lord, return us.

Brings us back

to a litter

of six new pigs in a slum

and a sudden quarter

of harvest

Lord of the last-born

give us

birth.

Lord of lost travellers,

find us. Hunt us

down.

Lord of answers,

cure us at once

of prayers.

3. Still Life

When she left me

after lunch,I read

for a while.

But I suddenly wanted

to look again

and I saw the half-eaten

sandwich,

bread,

lettuce and salami,

all carrying the shape

of her bite.

4. Astronomer

Sky-man in a manhole

with astronomy for dream,

astrology for nightmare;

fat man full of proverbs,

the language of lean years,

living in square after

almanac square

prefiguring the day

of windfall and landslide

through a calculus

of good hours,

clutching at the tear

in his birthday shirt

as at a hole

in his mildewed horoscope,

squinting at the parallax

of black planets,

his Tiger, his Hare

moving in Sanskrit zodiacs,

forever troubled

by the fractions, the kidneys

in his Tamil flesh,

his body the Great Bear

dipping for the honey,

the woman-smell

in the small curly hair

down there.

5. The Black Hen

It must come as leaves

to a tree

or not at all

yet it comes sometimes

as the black hen

with the red round eye

on the embroidery

stitch by stitch

dropped and found again

and when it's all there

the black hen stares

with its round red eye

and you're afraid.