Sadaananda on Seeing the Sea

Basudev Sunani

Translated by Sailen Routray

Adenium Seed Double Pappus

Photo Credit - Wikimedia Commons/ Timothy A. Gonsalves

You said,
that I did not understand,
rather that I misunderstood.

The waves;
the hungry wings of a heron
flying across my fields.

The beach;
a sand-filled quadrangle
that keeps an impartial account
of long-lost footsteps.

Area; 
an empty opening,
of a circumference 
of peasant songs.

I saw with both my eyes,
I believed;
therefore, may be, 
I misunderstood.

I am called Sadaananda.
My village is called Nagaan.
I have come to Bhubaneswar 

for the farmers’ fair,
to get the Governor’s prize 

for the biggest brinjal.

Perhaps the world 

started with the sea;
and the sea, therefore, is 
the storehouse of all things.

But evidently I misunderstood.
Why would not there be

 a drought in our parts?
Since all the water has been 

mortgaged at the sea.

Translator's Note: Basudev Sunani (b. 1962) is one of the foremost poetic voices of his generation in Odia literature. He has a body of prose in the form of novels, monographs and essays in the language as well.