Poems in Kannada
Rumi Harish
Translated from Kannada by Mamta Sagar
ಚಿಕ್ಕ ವಯಸ್ಸಿನಲ್ಲಿ
ಕನ್ನಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಖ ನೋಡಲು
ಅಯ್ಯೋ ತುಟಿ, ಅಯ್ಯೋ ಹುಬ್ಬು ಎಂಬ
ಗೋಜಿಲ್ಲದೇ, ಕನ್ನಡಿ ನೋಡದೆ
ಜಡೆ ಹಾಕಿ ತಲೆ ಸವರಿ
ಮುಂದೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನನಗೆ
ಈಗ ದಿನಕ್ಕೊಂದು ಸಾರಿ
ಕನ್ನಡಿ ನೋಡಿ
ಮೀಸೆ ಬಂತಾ, ದಾಡಿ ಬೆಳಿತಾ
ನೋಡೋ ಕುತೂಹಲ
ದೇಹದಲ್ಲಿ ರೋಮ
ರೋಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಪುರುಶತ್ವ
ಪುರುಶತ್ವದಲ್ಲಿ ಯೋನಿಯ
ನೋವು
ಮೊಲೆಗಳು ತೆಗೆದ ರೇಕೆಗಳು
ಚಾತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ
ಗಂಡಸಿನAತೆ ನಿಂತು
ಗಂಡಸುತನ ಮೆರೆವುದು ಹೇಗೆ
ದೇಹ ಮನಸ್ಸು ಎಲ್ಲಾ
ಗೊಂದಲದಲ್ಲಿರುವಾಗ
ನಾನು ಯಾರು
When young
I’d look into the mirror
No curiosity, never said
Ayyo lips, ayyo eyebrows…
Ignoring the mirror
I made my plaits, set my hair
And simply left.
Now I look in the mirror curiously
To check my
Growing moustache, sprouting beard.
In the body, in every follicle,
I seek manhood.
Manhood carrying vagina sufferings?
The pain
The scars of erased breasts.
How to flaunt this bosom
With manliness…
Like a man
How!
I wonder
When the body and mind are
Caught in confusion
Who am I
ಇವಳೋ … ಇವನೋ
ಹಸಿರೋ …. ಕಂದೋ
ಗುಲಾಬಿಯೋ … ಮಲ್ಲಿಗೆಯೋ
ಮುಳ್ಳೋ …. ಕಳ್ಳಿಯೋ
ಪರಿಸರ ಈ ಎರಡರಲ್ಲೇ
ಹುದುಗಿಲ್ಲ….
ಎಲೆಗಳು ಬರೀ ಹಸಿರಲ್ಲ
ನೀಲಿ, ಕಂದು, ಹಸಿರು, ಹಳದಿ, ಬೂದು, ನಾರಂಗಿ,
ಎಲೆ ಎಲೆಗೂ ಬರುವ ರಂಗಿನ
ಅಂತರಗಳು ಆ ಬಣ್ಣಗಳಿಗೇ ಇಲ್ಲ
ಒಂದು ದೊಡ್ಡ ಮರವ
ತಬ್ಬಿ ಅದರ ಬೂದಿ ಮೈಗೆಲ್ಲಾ ಹಚ್ಚಿ
ಅದರ ಬೂಡ್ಡೆಯ ಗಾಯಗಳ
ಮೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹೊತ್ತು
ಮೊಲೆಗಳ ಹರಿದು ಎದೆಯ ಅನುಭವಿಸುವ
ಸಂಕರಗಳು
ಯಾರಿಗೆ ಬೇಕು ಅವನು ಅವಳು
ನೇರಳೆಯಂತೆ ನಾನಾಗುವ ಭ್ರಾಂತಿ
ನಿಂಬೆಯಂತೆ ಅವಳಾಗುವ ಭ್ರಾಂತಿ
ಹೆರಳೆ ಹಣ್ಣಿನಂತೆ
ಹಲವು ಲೋಕಗಳ
ಪರಿಸರಸಗಳಲ್ಲಿ
ಮಣ್ಣಿನ ವಾಸನೆ ಹೊತ್ತು
ಮೈಯೆಲ್ಲಾ ಬೇರಾಗಿ
ಆಗಸ ಭೂಮಿಯ ನಡುವೆ
ನನ್ನ ಉಸಿರ
ಬದುಕಲು ಹಂಬಲ
Her or Him
Green or brown
Roses or jasmine
Thorns or cactus…
This world is
Beyond binaries
Leaves are not just green
Blue, brown, green, yellow, grey, orange
Colours don’t know the diversity
Displayed in leaves
By embracing a huge tree
Smearing its ashes all over
Carrying the wounds of its massive
Trunk in one’s body…
Tearing breasts out to relish a bosom
These crossbreeds
Who needs her or him
The illusion of me becoming the ‘I’ like a jamun plum
Like a lemon the illusion of transforming into ‘her’
Like a citrus fruit
In the ambience of many worlds
Lugging the fragrance of the soil
Spreading roots from every follicle
Between sky and earth
I want to breathe
Longing for life
Rumi Harish is a musician and a Human Rights Social Justice activist who started working on women’s rights issues in Hengasara Hakkina Sangha during 1998. He then started working with Powrakarmikas union on the first survey on the wages of Powrakarmikas in the year 1999. Later Rumi worked in different NGOs and joined Sunil with his work, and from 2005 has been working assisting Sunil Mohan in his research studies and projects. Rumi Harish has written three play scripts and worked as a music director for different documentary films and theatre plays. He has also directed music for the Kannada feature film Kaudi. Rumi is a regular columnist at Eedina.com. He is an ameture painter and a poet. Rumi has been working with different movements such as the sex workers movement and is working towards producing artistic material to bring out the issues of social resistance in public. Rumi Harish identifies as a queer transgender person and is working along with Sunil at Alternative Law Forum in non-discrimination study.
Rumi’s favourite sea creature
I like sardines as it is the most consumed seafood of working class communities in South India.
Mamta Sagar is a poet, writer, academic, and translator writing in Kannada language. She has four collections of poems, four plays, an anthology of column writing, a collection of critical essays in Kannada and English on gender, language, literature, and culture, and a book on Slovenian-Kannada literature interactions to her credit. Her writings focus on identity politics, feminism, issues around linguistic and cultural diversities.