Self Portrait

Self Portrait

Strengthless legs. Gutless wrists.
Angry, eyeful mists. Alone. Accumulate.

Twisted bent spine. Benumbed back of an arc.
Like a question mark. Pontificate.

Demented, delusional. All day I ramble.
Words in ink amble. Intervalled. Spaced.

I am, to myself, useless. Lament.
This failed experiment. Lord above.

- Sandeep Khare.

Translated and transmuted from Marathi by
Sopan A. Sharma.

The Sandeep Khare Project

Sandeep Khare is one of the most influential Marathi poets of our generation. I got introduced to his work during the four years I spent at PVG, and I was instantly hooked on due to the clarity, the novelty, and the sheer contemporariness of his work, not to mention that most of his work touched me like no other.

Throughout my yet nascent journey through Marathi poetry, I could not help but fret at this treasure of thoughts, ideas and art that many of us who're artistically inclined miss out on, only due to unfamiliarity with the language. Here's my attempt at bringing some of those thoughts, so that they touch you, just the way have me.

All apologies to Knowers of the art; as an amateur I find poetic translation extremely challenging, frustrating even; since even though one knows what one must say, words elude one, and while the sword of being true to the original's sentiments hangs indefinitely over one's head, there is the inherent will of the artist to present his own interpretation of a work of art. I have tried, to the best of my abilities.

To the rest of us, hope you guys enjoy it. Loads more to come...here's the first one, catalysed and crystallized over one sweaty Saturday morning, when a passionately loved one left.

Departure

Departure

The train departs;
Kerchiefs wave, The salt in the eyes fights for a way.
The train departs;
Faces droop, but the lips smile big to salvage the day.

The train departs;
Yet quivering hands resist, refuse, to let go,
This wet warmth that binds the hearts,
Is begged to dry out, but the winds refuse to blow.

The train departs,
Thankless to the million moments of disguised agony,
Slithers along, its route it charts,
And condenses, coldly, into a warm drop of memories.

The train has left;
The sighs on the platform reduce to trash.
The train has left;
With dead finality, these ocular vials of resolve crash.

- Sandeep Khare.

(Translated and transmuted from Marathi
by Sopan A. Sharma.)