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This Number Does Not Exist
An attentive critique on contemporary reality—modernity, capitalism, industrialization—this first United States publication of Mangalesh Dabral, presented in bilingual English and Hindi, speaks for the dislocated, disillusioned people of our time. Juxtaposing the rugged Himalayan backdrop of Dabral's youth with his later migration in search of earning a livelihood, this collection explores the tense relationship between country and city. Speaking in the language of deep irony, these compassionate poems also depict the reality of diaspora among ordinary people and the middle class, underlining the big disillusionment of post-Independence India. "Song of the Dislocated" With a heavy heart we left
tore away from the ancestral home mud slips behind us now
stones fall in a hail look back a bit brother
how the doors shut themselves behind each one of them
a room utterly forlorn Mangalesh Dabral was born in 1948 in the Tehri Garhwal district of the Himalayas. The author of nine books of poetry, essays, and other genres, his work has been translated and published in all major Indian languages and in Russian, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Polish, and Bulgarian. He has spent his adult life as a literary editor for various newspapers published in Delhi and other north Indian cities, and has been featured at numerous international events and festivals, including the International Poetry Festival. The recipient of many literary awards, he has also translated into Hindi the works of Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Ernesto Cardenal, Yannis Ritsos, Tadeusz Rozewicz, and Zbigniew Herbert. Dabral lives in Ghaziabad, India.
tore away from the ancestral home mud slips behind us now
stones fall in a hail look back a bit brother
how the doors shut themselves behind each one of them
a room utterly forlorn Mangalesh Dabral was born in 1948 in the Tehri Garhwal district of the Himalayas. The author of nine books of poetry, essays, and other genres, his work has been translated and published in all major Indian languages and in Russian, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, Polish, and Bulgarian. He has spent his adult life as a literary editor for various newspapers published in Delhi and other north Indian cities, and has been featured at numerous international events and festivals, including the International Poetry Festival. The recipient of many literary awards, he has also translated into Hindi the works of Pablo Neruda, Bertolt Brecht, Ernesto Cardenal, Yannis Ritsos, Tadeusz Rozewicz, and Zbigniew Herbert. Dabral lives in Ghaziabad, India.
- GenresPoetry
168 pages, Paperback
First published June 14, 2016
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 3, 2019
WOMAN IN LOVE
The woman in love
Has this dream every night.
What’s it about? One morning,
She decides to find out.
Around her she sees the most ordinary things:
Sandy ground,
A tap left running,
Her disarrayed room,
And something she can see
She cannot see, though she looks again.
The woman in love
Trusts no one.
She lets go of her comb
And turns her back to the mirror.
She says, I’m okay as I am.
One by one her friends desert her.
The sun goes down, keeping its distance.
The wind blows, but not through her hair.
The table is cleared
Without her having eaten.
The woman in love
Is deceived every day.
She doesn’t know what’s happening outside,
Who the cheat is, who takes her for a ride.
She doesn’t know how it all began.
The world’s a child in my arms,
Says the woman in love.
She comes out on the road alone
And looks at the big city around her.
Somewhere or other, she says, I’ll find a place to live.
GRANDFATHER'S PHOTOGRAPH
Grandfather wasn’t fond of being photographed
or didn’t find time perhaps
There’s just one picture of him
hanging on an old discolored wall
He sits serious and composed
like a cloud heavy with water
All we know of Grandfather is
that he gave alms to beggars
tossed restlessly in sleep
and made his bed neatly every morning
I was just a kid then
and never saw his anger or
his ordinariness
Pictures never show someone’s helpless side
Mother used to tell us that
when we fell asleep surrounded
by strange creatures of the night
Grandfather would stay awake inside the picture
I didn’t grow as tall as Grandfather
not as composed or as serious
Still something in me resembles him
An anger like his
an ordinariness
I too walk with my head bent down
and every day see myself
sitting in an empty
picture frame.
translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
The woman in love
Has this dream every night.
What’s it about? One morning,
She decides to find out.
Around her she sees the most ordinary things:
Sandy ground,
A tap left running,
Her disarrayed room,
And something she can see
She cannot see, though she looks again.
The woman in love
Trusts no one.
She lets go of her comb
And turns her back to the mirror.
She says, I’m okay as I am.
One by one her friends desert her.
The sun goes down, keeping its distance.
The wind blows, but not through her hair.
The table is cleared
Without her having eaten.
The woman in love
Is deceived every day.
She doesn’t know what’s happening outside,
Who the cheat is, who takes her for a ride.
She doesn’t know how it all began.
The world’s a child in my arms,
Says the woman in love.
She comes out on the road alone
And looks at the big city around her.
Somewhere or other, she says, I’ll find a place to live.
GRANDFATHER'S PHOTOGRAPH
Grandfather wasn’t fond of being photographed
or didn’t find time perhaps
There’s just one picture of him
hanging on an old discolored wall
He sits serious and composed
like a cloud heavy with water
All we know of Grandfather is
that he gave alms to beggars
tossed restlessly in sleep
and made his bed neatly every morning
I was just a kid then
and never saw his anger or
his ordinariness
Pictures never show someone’s helpless side
Mother used to tell us that
when we fell asleep surrounded
by strange creatures of the night
Grandfather would stay awake inside the picture
I didn’t grow as tall as Grandfather
not as composed or as serious
Still something in me resembles him
An anger like his
an ordinariness
I too walk with my head bent down
and every day see myself
sitting in an empty
picture frame.
translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
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