Satchidanandan |
We are living in coffins,
according to prominent bilingual Indian poet K Satchidanandan, former secretary
of Sahitya Akademi. His recent poem (in Malayalam) titled ‘Man who lives in a
coffin’ is the monologue of a man who is shut in a coffin that has a hole which
lets in air for him to breathe. He can see a blade of grass or a flower when he
looks out through that hole. Occasionally he hears the chirp of a bird or the
cry of a calf. He is habituated to lying in the coffin. Even if someone opens
the coffin he is not sure whether he will be able to walk outside. He has
learnt certain discipline lying in there. He doesn’t know who lies in the coffin
next to his. They say that all the coffins together form a nation. [Who are ‘they’?
The poet doesn’t tell us.] The man in the coffin can hear one person walking
outside. That person carries a painting brush. The man in the coffin can hear that
person with brush chanting ‘saffron, saffron.’ With the brush he writes “Vande
Mataram” on the coffin. That gives the man in the coffin goosebumps.
Sanjiv Bhatt
IPS was put in a coffin long ago. Now Teesta Setalvad and R B Sreekumar are also
in coffins. The painter outside is writing Vande Mataram on their coffins letting
out saffron guffaws. A thousand corpses rotted in coffins in that place exactly
two decades ago. There are 1.5 billion coffins constituting a nation. Coffins
carrying live corpses.
The Poem |
Hari OM
ReplyDelete...chilling... YAM xx
It's getting worse...! I foresee utter darkness ahead...
DeleteGoose bumps... yes things do seem to be worsening.
ReplyDeleteAlas, yes.
DeleteThanks a lot for sharing this! Although a Malayali, I may not have come across this poem but for your post. Such a powerful poem and so true to life.
ReplyDeleteI should say that Satchidanandan has guts.
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