ONCE IN THE PAST I WAS A WOMAN - RENUKA RAMANANDA'S 'HINDOMME NAANU HENNAGIDDE' ಹಿಂದೊಮ್ಮೆ ನಾನು ಹೆಣ್ಣಾಗಿದ್ದೆ

Here is my English translation of Renuka Ramanand's poem ಹಿಂದೊಮ್ಮೆ ನಾನು ಹೆಣ್ಣಾಗಿದ್ದೆ 'hindomme naanu heNNaagidde' ... a powerful poem suffused with pain, anger, despair, and also offering hope. Renuka Ramanand is a poet with a strong voice, that is at once commanding and empathetic. I have been reading her articles in Avadhi and now have read her poems. Her collection MEENUPETEYA TIRUVU ಮೀನುಪೇಟೆಯ ತಿರುವು has poems that take their subjects from everyday life and take them to a different level. When I selected this poem and was putting together my English translation, I constantly felt I may have taken on more that I can handle. I do not know if I have done justice to the poem and more than that, to the poetic voice. Thank you Renuka, for giving me permission to translate your poem. Here it is, ONCE IN THE PAST I WAS A WOMAN ...  

 

Kannada original: ಹಿಂದೊಮ್ಮೆ ನಾನು ಹೆಣ್ಣಾಗಿದ್ದೆ hindomme naanu heNNaagidde

Poet: Renuka Ramananda ರೇಣುಕಾ ರಮಾನಂದ

Translated into English by S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

ONCE IN THE PAST I WAS A WOMAN

 

Once in the past 

when I was born a woman

I was jumping from fire 

into frying pan

and again into fire

I was following in the 

centuries’-old tradition 

children who had left for foreign lands 

I wanted to fill my eyes 

for the last time

they weren’t there  

I hid my sighs 

my consumptive chest aiding

I coughed and coughed and 

choked and died

 

A woman is simply a woman

why do you needlessly bother

your heads with religion

you don’t allow cracked heels to heal

you wield the naked axe of constant fear

it’s the birth-right of all religions

to make women toil

 

Burkhas gowns

sarees of varied hues

hide our 

dry coughs, our infections

our flood-havoc-like monthly discharges

we are mothers to their children 

with our hanging bellies

and above them 

our sagging breasts

 

But now?

I am a beautiful tree

my solitary nakedness

spreads across to the ends of this world

fanning out to lands open and sheltered

I stand

 

When firemaidens with fistfuls of

burning seeds in their bodies

started coming to hide behind 

my rough trunk to shed a few tears

I stopped offering shade

to vile caste-born goons

I have learnt black-magic

to blast them into a million shreds

before their coarseness would touch me

 

ha ... ha ... ha ...

I was cremated

I was buried

these death-mongering men

couldn’t stop me from

becoming a beautiful tree 

 

“Plants don’t walk ”

children learn this day in and day out

Listen now –

Once upon a time in the past I was 

grandmother or great grandmother 

to all of you

I buried my simmering sobs 

deep in the burning coals and

coughed and coughed and died

 

Science doesn’t teach

transmigration in schools

 

But I remember clearly

once upon a time in the past

I was a woman

 

From the fire into the frying pan

from the frying pan into the fire

I was jumping

 

Now

I am a 

beautiful tree

 

*****