SEEK AND FIND GAME - SUBRAYA CHOKKADY'S 'HUDUKI HIDIYUVA AATA' ಹುಡುಕಿ ಹಿಡಿಯುವ ಆಟ

Kannada original: ಹುಡುಕಿ ಹಿಡಿಯುವ ಆಟ HUDUKI HIDIYUVA AATA 

Poet: Subraya Chokkady

Translated into English by: S. Jayasrinivasa Rao

 

SEEK AND FIND GAME 

 

Like Kabir standing in the bazaar

I am standing here

in this vast bus terminus 

amidst buses seemingly anchor-dropped in the sea

meditating on the bus that would take me home.

 

Wherever I see, I see

buses and buses

of varied colours and sizes,

amidst these, making space

are crowds of people like

masses of worms,

boarding alighting walking running,

buses and heaps of buses waiting to

take them to their stations.

They empty, they fill up,

like rivers that fill up

even while being emptied.

I stand flummoxed 

among these people

amidst these buses

I only want that one bus

that would take me home

the one bus that I can’t find

amongst all these buses, 

like water, water every where

not a drop to drink.

 

I search, I stumble, I look at the bus-boards

suddenly, there, there,

I found it finally, standing there

dozing in that corner

the bus to my village,

colour-bleached,

‘dakota-express’-like bus. 

 

I finally somehow found it, 

relieved I walked 

towards the bus.

Towards the bus to my village.

In a dangling state where 

I didn’t know a thing 

if it would move or not

and at what time or when.

 

As I was saying,

be they poets or storytellers

isn’t this the way 

they seek and find what they want

from among scattered piles of things?

And standing, waiting for

the next move?

*****