The Blind Fishes

THE BLIND FISHES

I thanked God and

The Avatars of God that

The morning breaks everyday and

The sun shines on the earth

I said hello to the

Rays descending from the heaven

And with them

I set foot on the world tour,

We decided to go first to

Where we had not gone before

We went together to

The cave of Kutumsar,

Cave was deep down

Below the terrain

The rays could not

Tread the winding steps,

And when I went down

Alone with a lantern,

The blind fishes swimming

In the stream of darkness

Grumbled that they

Were troubled by the light

We went to the

Forests of Philippines,

It was impossible to

Go deep insides but

I could hear

Muffled footfalls of a man

Walking in the woods,

And dried leaves murmured

In my ears- he does not

Live in your times and

He will continue to wait

For his emancipator

We went to ancient scriptures,

To the comic books, and

To the wilderness of

The North Pole,

There were caves allover

Inside dark forests, where

Sun-rays were forbidden,

Banned was waking up

Those sleeping, and not

Allowed talking with

Those awake

We went to a

Cinema hall in Delhi

And I told the sun-rays-

I want to watch a movie,

You better go home

It was a new theatre

Built with a new technique,

Several movies were being shown

On several screens, and

Each spectator was watching

A chosen movie,

Ensconced in a chosen seat

I too joined the audience,

Sitting in a new luxury seat in

The new building of the

New cinema house,

I realised that

I too, should chose a screen

And a movie

Around me, in the front,

And in the back, and on sides

Spectators were watching

The movies- enthralled,

Mesmerized, in pin drop silence,

And hubbub was on the screens,

Scenes were changing rapidly,

Changing were the actors and the events,

There was light on the screen and

The audience was soaked in darkness

I, too, with everyone else

There was this movie on

The Second World War, and

A soldier of General Tojo, 

Fearful and panicking,

Jumped out from the screen

And hid in the darkness

Spread around me and the audience

Raavan closed the pages of Ramayan &

Kumbhkarn came down from the screen*

His loud snores were floating

Over the hall

Stayed on the screen

Gurran- the monkey dwarf-

With his tribesman and

The mighty Phantom left

The theatre with his wolf

On the prowl of the world

In the hearth of pit-less cosmos

Burnt on the uneasy sun,

The rays were in slumber and the

Darkness boiling, bubbling in the

Cauldron of the sky,

Oozed out of the theatre

On the streets of the globe

I was alone in the hall

And I was scared,

This was dead night and

My lips were muttering

The names of God’s incarnations

In the security of the Phantom

Spectators had reached safely

In the caves of their homes,

And in Kutumsar

The blind fishes

Were sleeping cozily

In Lapland and Lanka

It was the time for all

To go to sleep,

Those already in the

Lap of sleep, had no

Need to arise,

And wide awake I, alone I

Was cursing myself,

I could not

Stay in the theatre, nor

Could I step out on the street,

I was afraid of

Meeting the fate of Abhimanyu*

Perhaps, at this point

I should have chanted mantras

To invoke the gods,

But I had not learnt

The art of waking the stones,

I did not know either

How to fight with wolfs

Or the phantoms,

I did not know that

In Hindi movies,

Shetty- the goon

Rises and re-rises from the ash

On the orders of the don,

And Lothar- the prince, needs

The magic of Mandrake 

To stay alive

I had never gone to discourses

Of the curly-hair swami,

Nor had I learned the trick

Of floating in the space,

I only knew Anand- the magician-

And his innocent tricks

I was standing alone at the

Threshold of the theatre,

I was not born to riches,

Nor the blood flowing in

My veins was pure

In this long night on earth

I wanted to save myself

And to live a full life,

In this darkness when

Even the stars were not seen,

I was praying for the sun

To appear on the horizon

I had toured the world

With the sun-rays, but now

I was waiting for the

Net of darkness to be cut

And when I wanted to

Remember God and his incarnations

I did not know that

This was the time for

The wolfs to laugh.

Notes- 1) Kumbhkarn, younger brother of the demon king Raavan, myth says that he slept for six months at a stretch. 2) Abhimanyu, the teenage heroic son of Arjun, the hero of Mahabharat war, was deceived and killed against the rules of the war. 3) Kutumsar caves are in dense forests of my state where blind fishes have been found, perhaps adapting to the darkness. 4) Raavan ruled in Lanka as the myth goes. 5) A Japanese soldier was indeed found in the forests of Philippines thirty years after the Second World War. 6) Gurran and Lothar are characters from comic books

Written and translated by Lalit Surjan