To A Town Called Tatanagar

I’ve left something behind in Jamshedpur, and I cannot seem to find it. I keep going back to the town in search of what I lost, but I do not remember when it slipped out or where or how.

Did I lose it on the cab ride to Engineer’s Hall the very first night I landed here? No, the road that wound its way around the Burma Mines and Kalimali and took me to the employees’ hostel in the eastern part of town did not have a single streetlight, and one does not lose these things in places one cannot see or retrieve them from. Did I lose it on the illumined corridors of the Hall? The labyrinthine passages from the gates to my room took me a while to map out in my mind. But work took me up and down those wings several times a day and phone calls made phantoms out of me each night on those corridors. I would have found it if I had lost it here.

I am sure I did not lose it on the grassy paths that led up to the Management Training Centre, where retired General Managers taught me more in a week than I had learnt in years. Nor did I lose it in the Area Office where the accounts are handled. One does not lose such things in cabins or cubicles and report them as liabilities on balance sheets. Not in the precision of the engine manufacturing lines or the lines of 49-ton Prima trucks ready for dispatch or even in the truck graveyard where lorries that have lost their yearning to ply are stowed did I lose what I have lost. I only gained in experience with what I met here, and never did miss anything.

Where then? Did it drop into one of the pockets on the pool table at Telco Club or did it roll into one of the potholes in Sector Market when we went to get buckets and mugs? Did it fall off from one of those tumultuous tumtums that seat four but took ten of us to Sakchi for five rupees a head or to Bistupur for ten rupees a head? Or perhaps it dived into the Subornorekha river head-first while we were heading home from Mango after a night show of Rockstar? There is the chance it could have parted with me in the leafy locales of Circuit House with the ulterior intentions of getting into XLRI or staying at one of the serviced apartments near the campus.

It could have tumbled out while we were climbing the dam on Lake Dimna that afternoon, or while we were mounting the hundred steps up the Bhubaneshwari Temple to watch the Kathakali show that evening. I know I did not lay it among the flowers at Jamsetji Tata’s feet in the beautiful Jubilee Park nor at those of Birsa Munda in the bustling Sunday Market. But what about on Hudco hill and Sumant Moolgaokar’s plaster camera capturing the entire town of Jamshedpur? Did it go down here as the sun set behind the chimneys of Tata Steel or did it go up like the steam emanating from them and mingle with the crisp air of the East Indian company?

I’ve left something behind in Jamshedpur, but I haven’t found it yet. I retrace my steps to haunts I frequented with the hope that I might stumble upon it somewhere and reclaim it as my own. I go to the idli-vadai kadai where we had our morning meals and the jhalmuri stall in Golmuri where we had chaat and chai. I revisit the Sonari Gurdwara on Sundays for the langar and the Kerala Samajam for lunch. I even return to the terrace top of Little Italy some nights to see if the waiters there have found it and kept it aside for me, but they haven’t. So I go back to Engineer’s Hall and play a game of badminton, if that can help me recollect where it was I lost it.

My eyes travel to the induration on my right big toe that grew when I fell playing on these very courts and that prevented me from playing volleyball on the adjacent ones. It is possible that I had dropped it here and if I had, it must have been trampled upon by now by the many soles that have skittered on this turf since that day. And it is equally likely I lost it the night of the monthly party when those same soles went tipsy on vodka roshogollas and would have stamped it in the ensuing stampede, had I lost it there that night. Or maybe it was saved that fate and went away instead to the white grid-boxes of The Hindu’s cryptic crosswords that Sam and I used to solve?

Was it lost to me in Bairesh’s paruppu podis and pickles or in the samosas Milind brought after German classes or in the sweetmeats Shireesh brought from his sister’s wedding? Was it because Prashant went to the hospital every week or because Syed was late every morning for the creature with the head of a truck and the body of a bus? Was it drowned in Divisional Manager Jambunathan’s sonorous voice below his tiny moustache or entangled in Senior Manager Murthy’s bristling moustache above his meek mouth? Or did it pull the chain and abandon the train at Kharagpur when Naxalites entered my coach on the return journey to Calcutta on Christmas Eve?

I have left behind things in Jamshedpur: Murakami’s Norwegian Wood because I hated it, a bag because there was too much luggage to carry to Lucknow and a shirt marked 57/4 that the dhobi must be wearing these days. I left behind a few droplets of my blood on the badminton court in Engineer’s Hall, and a mug and a bucket I purchased one Sunday at Sector Market, but these are trivialities that can be replaced. It has been over two years since I lost a part of my heart in that town and it has not come back to me yet. But Jamshedpur has left so much behind in me. It is only fair that I leave what I left behind there and never go seeking it ever again.

Found in Translation

I am fortunate to have Pramod Khadilkar as a friend and colleague. He is an exceptional playwright, poet and philosopher (with some time to go before he is a Doctor of Philosophy;). When he writes something new, I am one of the first persons he reads it out to and leaves enthralled. So when he asked me if I could try and translate a few of his Marathi poems, I gladly jumped on the challenge and worked on it. Here are three of the translations we did with links where available to audios of him reading his original pieces.

A Timeless Tale

[based on Ek Goshta in the Marathi of Pramod Khadilkar]

There once lived a Seka who’d taken to sprint,

Right from the instant that he was an infant!

Since the start of his days,

He’d never lost a race

All this time up to the present.

Seka was almost addicted to winning:

He once dreamed of loss and since had stopped sleeping!

In his bid to finish first,

He wouldn’t look around lest

His eyes catch something distracting.

Cruising on course, he saw someone ahead-

But Seka’s being second wasn’t tolerated!

He raced and he raced

Till frontrunner were outpaced,

And never did turn back his head.

Just as he was to stop so to breathe,

Seka saw loser again in the lead!

Foo...haa! Foo...haa!

Seka overtook Mika,

And the wind too was slower in speed.

Mika, among athletes, though was top-shot,

Cursed himself for not ever taking top spot!

No matter how fast

He sprinted, but past

Him, Seka would pass on the trot.

Fast as he was and try as he might,

Him winning was like a moon on amavasya night!

To the difference minute

Did Mika attribute

His loss, in their thinness and height.

Tired of trailing, now Mr. Mika

Stopped by the stocky and slow Mr. Taka;

Seeing quorum in place,

And so quelling pace,

The couple was joined by our Seka.

“Comrades!” said Taka, “Oh what is this ruse

Of running behind a golden-eyed goose?

When with rushing legs,

We’re crushing her eggs

That we could have put to good use?

“Even if we do pick our own destination,

And choose to be our own competition,

We can’t win or lose

Nor grab the gold goose

Unless we stop at satisfaction.”

“What’s the time, dear?” she called in a bawl,

I rolled up my head and looked at the wall

To see that time stands

Still with joint hands,

Bringing our clockwork to stall.

I opened our age-old Grandfather’s face

And did his pacemaker with new cells replace,

Causing to trigger

To resume with new vigour,

Taka’s and Mika’s and Seka’s old race.

“It’s 2.10,” said Mika, “I hope I shall see

You two for a second at quarter-past-three!”

“I wonder why it stopped,”

Said she and I laughed,

“Doesn’t running all the while make you weary?”

_

Casting off my Conscience

[translated from Karaar in the Marathi of Pramod Khadilkar]

Must you interrupt me for everything I say? We two could

have some arguments – must you tell the whole neighbourhood?

Agreed, talk resolves matters, but we must keep it to our fences.

What is the deal for you to brandish now these muskets of silences?

Arey national economies work on trade. Let’s have an exchange: You

be a bit brazen, yes, yes, I’ll work on my selfishness too.

I cannot allow this insinuation that I am insensitive – I write such moving verse,

my audience feels for its poetic themes and I fetch much applause.

Alright, alright, let’s donate some money to some charitable outfits and we’re through?

Twice a year? Once? Okay twice, we’ll give them our time too.

Look, just because sugarcane is sweet, you mustn’t eat its roots;

You mustn’t keep putting someone’s goodness to your use.

Here’s a 200 rupee stamp paper, come, let’s annul this true

and legal; I don’t want this brought up annually like the water supply issue.

It’s decided now, I don’t want your troubles any more,

Your suffering and your pain, I won’t hear of any more.

When I squander food again, don’t remind me of the starving,

Don’t come asking me for tissue next time you feel like crying.

I know you’re true of conscience, you’ll abide by our agreement,

You’ll meet me only as we’ve planned to, never sans appointment.

I’ll see you then, be practical, please at least do try!

This world of ours is ugly – don’t get taken for a ride.

Okay then, you take your leave, yes, we shall stay in touch,

Let’s ensure non-familiarity doesn’t contempt breed so much.

_

The World Within

[translated from Aat in the Marathi of Pramod Khadilkar]

Today I happen to see her, walking towards me,

Head lowered, as if speaking to the ground beneath her feet.

She laughs within herself and she cries within her too,

She blossoms within herself and then withers within too.

Someone in her girlhood years had latched her from the outside,

A thousand tries of opening hence, she locked herself inside.

Now she claims she’s grown a pretty world wholly inside her,

And rides to foreign lands within her with a royal rider.

A pond, a park, a bungalow within, a crematorium beside it,

Lest her fort were impregnated, she had a pyre at the lit.

When she comes close, I stop her – she looks up in a fluster

And gives me a hearty smile, though I can see her tears muster.

‘How have you been?’ I ask. She nods and says, ‘Oh great!’

‘Let’s have a cup of tea.’ say I. She says, ‘No, I’ll be late.’

‘Come out of yourself once,’ I tell her, ‘I can help you out.’

‘I’ve lost the way to the outer world, there are thickets all about.

‘You come inside me,’ said she, ‘It’s like a dream in here!

‘There’s a swing, there are jasmine creepers and...’ stops, sensing my fear.

She gathers her books to her breast and wipes the tearstains off her face,

‘I need to go and water my park, or the plants dry up,’ she says.

A glimpse at me and she walks away, her gaze upon the ground,

I stare at her and wonder if she were lost within or found.

_