The true measure of night is night
Night’s only claim is that it is night
It’s necessary to push the night to the brink of dawn
There’s no need to call the entwining of the four hands
an embrace
With blaming each other with perpetual unforgetting egos
with distrust
as though I don’t live or die for myself
it becoming an argument
the moment I speak out
it being understood as if I wish to part ways
the moment I move a step forward
like the piece of bone between a pup’s teeth
unable to stand the hollow sound time makes
like the dumb ox tied to a stone
unable to wriggle out of the sighs
don’t I with the truths
you with those moments
fail
unable to take the heat of love
Don’t we talk about it as victory
even as we fall down on the side of defeat
Don’t we need some tears even to overcome
Unable to light up our faces as soon as the light’s turned on
with or without the sense of shame
for we end up burying our face with the help of soaps creams powder cakes for we’d have already begun to brighten up the surroundings with flowers and fragrant powders fit for any occasion The trace of cracks of the heart’s tiresomeness the wet rays of hope after one has swallowed words of poison even when not wiped with any moment’s edge When we are struggling like the green house lizard with someone else’s face and someone else’s love the true measure of night is that it is night night’s only claim is that it is night Amidst the silence of the day’s caves getting crushed underneath boulders the foolish path spread between life and living it’s necessary to push the night to the brink of dawn
Translated from Telugu by M. Sridhar arid Alladi Uma
Translator’s Note
Kondepudi Nirmala is a well-known feminist writer. She has published extensively including four anthologies of poetry. Sandigha Sandhya, Nadiche Gaayalu, Badhaasaptanadi and Multinational Muddu. She has also a collection of short stories, Shatru Sparsa. She has been able to represent how various changes in society affect the way a woman is viewed. She has won many awards including the Kumaran Asan award and Freeverse Front Award.
The sheer mechanical aspect of the sexual union is strikingly brought out by the irony Nirmala successfully employs in this poem. It is difficult to translate this ironic tone. Added to this is the near impossibility of translating each utterance spread over several run-on lines, a feature this poem shares with many others Nirmala has written. There seems to be a pun in the first two lines suggesting simultaneously that “The true measure of night is to be felt when it’s over/ Night’s only claim is when it’s over.” The pun gets added emphasis when the poet uses it as a refrain.
