Sunday, December 28, 2008

Prince, curse and the poem

Thought of posting a poem and since I havent written one recently, here is an old one written by me somewhere in 2004 or 2005. This requires some back ground.

One morning when we were still transitioning between college and corporate world, in came a forward which goes as below (I have shortened it):

Handsome prince - cursed by a witch - can speak only one word a year - can save the word every year, so that, for example, after 4 years of silence, can speak 5 words in the fifth year - meets a lovely princess - waits for 2 years to say 'my darling' - in the second year, decides to wait few more - 9th year, walks to her and says '"My darling, I love you! Will you marry me?" - and guess what the damsel said - "Pardon?".

That's a cruel comedy for the romantic minds. Anyway, here is what I wrote on it:

பல திங்கள் மெளனித்து
வார்த்தை வார்த்தையாய் சேமித்த காதலை
ஒரே வார்த்தையில் சிதறடித்தாள் -

"Pardon?"

(I havent used the exact words here...I am not sure what I wrote originally).

Ok...here is a transliteration(**) which I made up just now:

"Months of silence

And pounds of love

Gathered in his heart -

When the words were uttered

She spelled a bitter curse -

"Pardon?"

** Post Script added on (1/4/2009): The usage of 'transliteration' is wrong here. A better word would be 'Translation'.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

touch of perfection! but one thing. when you come up with an english version of a tamil poem, i have never seen you being a translator or a transliterator. without any exaggeration, I can simply say, you are a transmogrifier!

சேரலாதன் பாலசுப்பிரமணியன் said...

Good One Bhupi!

~ said...

பல மாதங்கள் மெளனித்து..
seems better than பல திங்கள் மெளனித்து..

Just a suggestion...

Nice one though... has a sad feeling...