Wednesday, April 21, 2010

This is not a Question of that Kind



Hrushikesha Mohanty

(English Version of the Odia poem published in Digbalaya April 2010)
http://mokatha.blogspot.com/2010/04/ieta-semiti-gotie-prashna-nuhen.html


This is not a kind of question
For which you choose to live in a cave filled with solid darks
Where bats fly tearing off the space and time
With stinking smells of droppings
And the present sits in despair!

This is not a kind of question
To be asked by you like a Parikhita
And I will be a Suka Muni to reply and get rid-off.



Why didn’t Sita ask this question being cornered-
Being afraid of whispers or cursing to her fate
Or deciding to forget the footsteps of yesterdays’?

Why do we ask those questions in every evening
To tease each other or to offend each other ?
As if there is a lot of fun in weeping in hidings.

Often we have decided to forget the question
That does not have any answer
Neither in stuffed purse nor in weaponry of tongue.
But the question again appears with the rage of Durbasa
For anger, desire or suspicion?


There are so many other questions to answer
That can be searched and searched
Gazing and pondering at the restless sea.
Why don’t you understand – there need not
Be answers to all the questions to live with - The Present.
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Let me confess – it’s not a beautiful translation.

8 comments:

C.K. Rajendran said...

Dear Sir,

The message I get from the poem is:

IT IS A WASTE OF TIME SITTING IN A DARK CAVE WITH SUFFERINGS TO SEEK THE TRUTH.

RATHER ONE CAN SPEND THE TIME IN A USEFUL WAY FACING THE FACTS BY SERVING THE HUMANKIND.

The question now is, WHO will answer?

C.K. Rajendran

Anonymous said...

Highly interesting poem indeed. Even the translation
to an alien language does not seem to block the merits
of the thoughts in the poem.

Very well done. Keep it up.

A B Sagar said...

Dear Sir,

very interesting poem indeed. so many times i struggled for answers for some of the questions in life.. when things go wrong, or don't go the way i wanted, or seem very illogical, i seek to find answers. It was very good reading your poem... I am happy that there are other people also who are struggling for answers for some questions :)

Finally the poem says, we need not know answers to all the questions in life.. thats a good and satisfactory finish...
thank you very much Sir.

Anonymous said...

sir

It is realy a poem of inner voice.thanking you for giving an oppertunites to read such type of poem.

Prasant Pattnaik
Professor
Department of CSE
KIST

Anonymous said...

I read many times, but still i could not find the question/ I feel It is a universal feeling for everybody to have such question in their mind which neither they ask, nor they forget, nor they get answer or something beyond my understsnding? Superb expression.Regards. Gagan

Anonymous said...

The poem depicts the bare reality,
the reality of life and living.
There is no other way out; we have accept it, we have to live with this,
as life is full of contradiction.
And the contradiction is real, real for me and for all
And will be real for future generation to come
There is no answer to the unanswerable question
And the question itself is the real
Real for ever
We have to accept it without any further question

Life begins with this question
It sustains with it and ends
And we are here to experience
realize the reality and reality of your question
Search for the answer is nothing but opening up the reality,
enjoying with the reality and satisfying the thirst of asking
I liked the poem and lost myself with the question which you have opened up
With regards

Vinath Katri said...

Seems to me you are saying that our fate is to live and continue to make choices in the present as best as we can without having the answers to the questions that can help us make the choices.

Sapna said...

In school, they keep telling us to ask 'why' for all things and get answers to questions. But, life teaches you that there is no answer for certain questions, some of which are important. You poem has put it very nicely