Sambandha

Malathi Pattana Shetty (Summary)

Malathi Pattana Shetty born on 1940

“A Woman need not depend on anyone else to make her life a happy one in spite of tragedies in spite of disappointments, life is beautiful,” Malathi Pattana Shetty says. “Writing poetry is my hobby.”  For a living she teaches English at a college in Dharwar. She started writing in 1976 and has published four collections of poetry: Ba Parikshege (Come, Face the Challenge) 1976, Garigedari (Ruffled Wings), 1983, from which the poem translated hear is taken, and Nanna Avaru( my people) and Tande Baduku Gulabi (You Brought the Rose of Life), both in 1988. A collection of short stories, Indu Ninnina Kathegalu (Stories of today and yesterday) also appeared in 1988. The dominant subjects of her poetry are nature and love. “Sambandha” explores the despair of one who finds that her relationship is one-sided. What for the man was simply a natural process like breathing becomes life’s very substance for the women. “Personal elements have been so completely depersonalized here that the poem extends beyond its man-women context and tries to explore the tragedy of all unanswered human relationships,”  the critic Vijaya Dabbe writes, adding “there is a perfect balance of thought and emotion.”

 

Sambandha (Relationship)

Having built a citadel of disregard

 Smeared with snow that turns into smoke

 Inside and out a silent entry Sentry,

 

Wearing your searching eyes,

 Each breath churning every atom of my being

 On the path you bid me tread, each step a rose,

 

Still carrying its warm, raw vessels,

Laughter tumbled down the unknown slope.

Awake, alone, be wildered,

I cry “friendship.”

 

 Why do you poke your nose here?

 Soundless Rage?

 Your sanitary pacing stops all of a sudden.

 

This purdah, this pacing, these features

 Stride business like toward me, who is

 Sandalwood enveloping you

 They cling, dig, slash

Through your lost moonlight,

 Asking what is

 Going on between

 You and me.

Translated by Tejaswini Niranjana