The Sky is a Name 

Bharat Majhi

Translated by Sailen Routray

 

Painting - 'Green Peaks under Clear Sky: After Huang Gongwang'
Artist - Wang Yuanqui (1642-1715)
Photo Credit - Wikimedia Commons

Why would the sky know that
I lost my way in Habaspur
on that not so fateful day?
 
Why would the sky know that
the tree that my grandmother had planted
in the corner of our backyard
has grown to lean over
the house of her favourite enemy?
 
Why would the sky know
that much blood has flown
since this country tasted freedom.
 
Much has been written about the sky.
But I feel

that the sky is just another name
like Rupalekha, Sita, or Narottama.
 
I have not met the sky,
and, as such, I like very few of the folk 

that I end up meeting.
 
Now you’ll enter the realm 

of planets, stars, galaxies and the moon.
You’ll explain geographies and genealogies and show 

that the sky has a different character
in each season.
 
But you’ll conveniently forget
to enumerate the number of clothes
that a folk needs to count as a man.
 
Sir!
You are the kind 

that watches the sky.
And I am the type 

that gets lost in Habaspur
and, watches trees grow

and friends dragged 

to the slaughterhouse.
 
Why would I love
someone with a character
who will die a painful death 

sans the silly mysteries propping it up?

Note: This translation was first published in issue number 287 of the magazine Indian Literature in May-June 2015. The poet, Bharat Majhi (born in 1972 in Kalahandi), works in an Odia language media house in Bhubaneswar. He has published nine volumes of poems in a poetic career spanning more than three decades. Amongst other recognitions, he has won the Bhubaneswar Book Fair Award in 2008 and the Sanskriti Award in 2004.