Curries’ Life
English Translation: Madhuri Palaji
Telugu Original : Dr K.Geeta
Sheer under man, or man under sheet
Even during the cyclone, it grumbles silently
Old life to fill the tummy
Sits all day along for ten cents
Small basket of vegetables lead a big life
From dawn
Till dusk,
The voice shrieks a cent and a penny
To create the impression of cheap price
During an entire day, only one hot tea
Enters the skeleton covered with skin
Like the blunt and broken weighing stones
The pitted eyes with wrinkles
Anxiously weigh the ups and downs of life
The wallet rings the hunger every moment
With coins touching again and again
The cheeks with dimples even without smile
Ruminate life heavier than death failing to swallow
Since it has no teeth but the eyes
No patience but life
No desire to live but failure to die of hunger
It folds three legs
Arranges four varieties of vegetables in front
Sells weighing quarter life for each rupee
In spine shivering rain
And in cold that can move even dead bodies
With the fate that doesn’t changes in spite of the changing world
With shaking head
Due to continuous efforts
Pulling together the loosened skin
Like a sparrow that shivers before reaching it’s nest
Spits the time
After mumbling many curse words
Amidst the whole day’s agony
Wears the empty life basket on her head
Don’t know if she rests at least at night without fear
And without worrying about the survival
She reappears with curries’ life
Again in the morning like the creeping light!
*****
Madhuri Palaji is a writer and book reviewer from India. Her book “Poems of The Clipped Nightingale” is available on Kindle. She writes book reviews for various publishing houses like Penguin Random House, Meerkat Press, Hot Tree Publishings, Bethany Publishers, etc. She is one of the top 50 book reviewers in India. Her reviews are available at http://www.theclippednightingale.com/