A DROP AND THE OCEAN - H. S. SHIVA PRAKASH'S 'HANIKADALU' ಹನಿಕಡಲು

Kannada original: ಹನಿಕಡಲು Hanikadalu

Poet: H. S. Shiva Prakash

Translated into English by: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

A Drop and the Ocean

 

The ocean called out to the water drop:

‘Come, become one with me.’

The water drop said:

‘O’ ocean, don’t call out to me;

I’m still a wee drop of water,

I’ll become a puddle first,

then a stream,

then a river, and

slowly and leisurely,

I’ll flow through valleys and plains

and, at last I’ll join you.

Wait for me till then,

with my own efforts I shall persist.’

 

The sun in the sky guffawed

at the water drop’s naivety.

He vaporised the water drop in an instant

and transformed it into a tiny

particle of a cloud,

which he made into rain and

when he poured it over the ocean,

the ocean asked the water drop:

‘What happened to your own efforts?’

The water drop had forgotten that it was

a water drop,

it had become the ocean itself.