UMESH SOLANKI

Man, It Should Freeze

Translated from the Gujarati by Hemang Ashwinkumar

Please find the original Gujarati version here.

MAN, IT SHOULD FREEZE

man, it should freeze.
something
somewhere
should freeze, at least,
so that the thick sheet of fog is cleared.
at a roadside tea-stall
tea should freeze in kettle,
slivers of betel nuts at a paan shop
should turn into hard jagged grit,
vegetables in the hawker’s cart
should morph into stones,
panipuri into pebbles,
mere touch of money should ossify
soft fingertips into dead sea-shells,
a man ambling down the street
should be stuck tight to the tar,
like black letters of newsprint
nailed forever in mind,

for this thick sheet of fog to clear
something
somewhere
should freeze.

BROOM TWIGS

gandhi
i pour hooch on your skinhead.
i’ve given up on you, in fact.
your khadi wears out a bit too soon, hope you know it. 
your life in claustrophobic frame on walls, sure you hate it.
and from when have temples turned into human abode?
don’t you get it?
what makes you smirk?
here goes a hooch-bag on your head. shucks!

i’ve something to show you, if you care.
broom twigs in secret city lanes, a litter.
they mutter, they roam,
how they sway and groan!
did you see that, that twig,
buzzing away near gutter?
that holy pick rolling in the dust of shrine
that scraggy shadow slinking away, supine,
lazy and lost?
have a good look, gandhi,
wish you clear eyesight,
to see in broad daylight,
in pitch-dark night,
a whole shebang of twigs.
but you’re a stoic or a shiny stone,
here goes a hooch-bag on your dome. 

let me tell you a tale.
a few months back,
two hands without flesh
clawed a few city lanes,
combed every nook,
pulled out a troop,
a pile of twigs mid-street
a spark flew, giant flames blew.
poor little twigs! brittle broom twigs!
sky was rent with shrieks,
blasting a thousand eardrums.
but everything disappeared
before a week.
deafness of ears, hands without fear
light and dark, everything vanished
with the twigs, leaving behind a whiff.

let me show you another tribe, gandhi.
twigs of sheer ash
twigs in tattered sari
not a drop in belly, drenched in sweat.
look! those tiny twigs boil over a Primus stove!
look around, peer in thick dark of this hovel.
how that tender twig is being maimed for life!

enough.
i’ll stop now,
and escape the grind of feeling.
but tell me one thing, gandhi,
are you stoic or just a shiny little stone?
hell, so be it,
have this lethal hooch on your head.
i’ve simply given up on you.
your khadi wears out a bit too soon.
life in photo frame surely is a doom.
temples have never been a human abode
what makes you smirk?
here goes a hooch-bag on your head. shucks!

Context: The hooch tragedy in Ahmedabad in July, 2009 from where Mahatma Gandhi had led crucial movements for Indian independence

Umesh Solanki is a poet, novelist, journalist, photographer and film maker all neatly rolled into one. He runs a poetry e-magazine called Nirdhar. With degrees in journalism and literature, he brings the lived reality of marginalized people into his work. As an editor, he has encouraged people writing in languages other than Gujarati to contribute to Nirdhar. His poetry has been published in Nirikshak, Dalit Adhikar, Nirdhar and Indian Literature. He can be reached at umeshsolanki@gmail.com

Hemang Ashwinkumar is a poet, fiction writer, translator, editor and critic who writes in Gujarati and English. His poems have been translated into Greek, Italian and other Indian languages. His English translations include Poetic Refractions (2012), an anthology of contemporary Gujarati poetry, and Thirsty Fish and Other Stories (2013), an anthology of select stories by eminent Gujarati writer Sundaram. Penguin Random House India has brought out his translation of Gujarati Dalit writer Dalpat Chauhan’s novel Vultures (2022), and edited collection of short stories titled Fear and Other Stories (2023). His Gujarati translations of Arun Kolatkar’s Kala Ghoda Poems (2020), Sarpa Satra (2021) have been critically acclaimed. His scholarly monograph Translating the Translated: Poetics and Politics of Literary Translation in India will be published by Orient Blackswan in 2024. His translation of eminent painter-poet Gulammohammed Sheikh’s collection of autobiographical essays Gher Jatan (On the Way Home) will be published by Seagull Books, Kolkata.