Poems of Vettivel Thushyanthan translated
In Sri Lankan Writing in Tamil the most literary genre that finds
place in the newspapers and magazines is poetry. There are two kinds of
poetry - private and public. While a majority of what is published as
poems is just prose like slogans and artificial pronouncements, quite a
few quality poems are written by youngsters. On the Internet websites
and Facebook, I have noticed some fine poetry with unusual freshness has
been posted.
One of the youngsters that write good poems is Vettivel Thushyanthan
from Alvaai in Yaalpaanam peninsula. Last year he brought out a
collection called Verichoadum Managal (Emptying Minds) and on Sunday
last (October 16, 2011) his second collection was launched. Last week in
this column I featured some of his poems in translation by me. The poems
were selected from his anthology Moli Peyarkap Padaatha Mownangal
(Un-translated Silences).
This week too I would like to translate some of his poems in the
second collection Verichoadum Manangal. There is an undertone of
pessimism and self-pity in his poems due to the war that plagued in
Tamil-speaking areas not as distant as last year. And yet they serve to
indicate to the outer world the claustrophobic surroundings and the
impotence of getting out from it.
 Let's look at some of Thushyanthan's Tamil poems:
Ahathikalin Thesam (Nation of Refugees)
This upheaval has seen several agonies
However, what sufferings this Nation
Has experienced has not been seen
By any nation
We've become sinners not committing
Any Sin; Our Being has been questioned
In our own National
Have we ever lived permanently
In any place?
Never, never, never.
Every time we've lived in all the
Visible countries.
From birth till today
We continue to run all over
We cannot for a moment rise
An undecipherable fear rises in horror
Frightening us
Even if live seeking number of countries
The place we now live
Has more notice and attention
Barbed wire protection
Food at appointed times
Rest of the time work load
Counting of heads from time to time
What more after this?
The point of the pen refuses to
Give birth to words
Even this we wouldn't
Consider permanent.
We are born to run
Until we live to all places
We shall exist only by running
Because this is our country.
Ranamum Pinamum (Wounds and Corpses)
In this upheaval where
Wounds and corpses
Daily burn
We're left in isolation
Living wit blood and flesh boiling
This life for us has been cursed
To be a little differently changed
We spend only years
Carrying painful crosses
That cannot be unloaded
Time has given us slurs
That cannot be digested
Even to rock our children
In cradles of joy
Even for a moment.
The miserable life
Designed to us
Is entwined with severe
Pain and crude tongue.
Our sorrows are tightened
Under our throat thus preventing
Even to cry translating our pains
We eternally make it
Smooth birth of our language
Of suffering via our eyes
While the ember between moments and days
Are active the so-called revival
Is cut off in our hearts
Our life moves slowly
As wounds and walking corpses.
Aathalal Kaathal Seiveer (Therefore Make Love)
Many kinds of love
In this universe; Many fall in love
There're humans that love love
Love is not a baby of words
That plays with mere words.
It's a sublime feeling
Born out of emotions
That makes one feel
Melted with ecstasy
Love is not in beauty
Love itself is beauty
Love is heart's bank
That mortgages hearts
It's only in this bank
That the interest rate increases
Moment to moment
Though in love aches are there
Pain takes form
Sometimes even forms turn
Pain; And yet they're
Beginning of pleasure.
The bond of love can even kill
Death, creates history
Therefore make Love.
I have made an attempt to translate above V. Thushyanthan's
originally written poems in Tamil. The background of all his poems is
the agonizing environment in his village and around in the north where
people became refugees in their own lands during the wretched and
unreasonable killings of both the combatants and the common and innocent
persons.
Basically the poet is a humanist abhorring violence of all kinds, but
young he is, he finds that his life is conditioned by the kind of
environment from which he could not free himself. Therefore reality
strikes him hard on his face and him and his people stomach all agonies
and struggle to survive taking negatives into positives.
There lies the strength of the people and the hardened
familiarization of the situation in a mature manner. His poems were
written during the agonizing war that peacefully ended two years ago.
Writers in the Tamil-speaking areas could not express themselves
sincerely and honestly during the cul-de sac wars of the past decades.
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