மணமக்கள்!

On Poet 'Sathara' Malathy (19.6.1950 - 27.3.2007)
-  By Latha Ramakrishnan  -
Born on the 19th of June 1950 she was a post-graduate from Presidency College, Chennai. Hailing from a place called Brammadesam near Ambasamudhram in Thirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, she had her School and College Education in Chennai. She worked for BSNL as Chief Accounts Officer and in the last several years of her career before she got a transfer to Bangalore and subsequently opted for Voluntary Retirement, she was posted in a place called Sathara in Maharashtra Her poems reveal her passionate heart and its unanswered queries and unfulfilled dreams and they belong to one and all of us. She had experimented with various styles and tones in writing Poetry, using classical Tamil, folk-language etc. She took part in literary seminars and discussions with genuine interest and her Papers would always be balanced and analytical, avoiding overtones.

Three collections of poems – VARIKUTHIRAIGAL ( the zebras) , THANAL KODI POOKAL( fire-plant flowers), MARAMALLIGAIGAL ( a kind of trophical flowers) – one short-story collection – ANAMADHEYA KARAIGAL (anonymous shores) – one Anthology of essays on the renowned Tamil Classic Andaal Thirupaavai, analyzing the underlying theme of the verses with a rare sensibility and sensitivity, UYARPAAVAI - of Sathara Malathy have so far been published.

It was from the 90s that 'Sathara' Malathy's tryst with the little magazines or literary magazines of Tamil began in right earnest. Sathara Malathy's poems, and her numerous analytical articles on poetry and other branches of literature prove her credentials as a writer with substance Her deep love for Tamil and her firm grasp of its numerous shades and nuances are evident in her writings. She had firm feministic leanings but she never steered them toward acquiring anti-man syndrome. She had great love and respect for her mother (who herself was a poignant reader and writer whose two short-story collections have been published in the last several years) and she had penned a poignant poem on her mother which is included in the 'Maramalligaigal' collection. Her husband, mother and only daughter are living in Bangalore.

A friendly soul, so full of Whys, Hows and Whats of Life, Sathara Malathy used to be a regular contributor to the reputed e-zine Thinnai.

1) Lovers

They meet on
Valentine’s Day
Those no lovers _
as in
wedding days

Lovers don’t meet.
They Be.
When all drenched
in fire and
break apart
They Be.

For mutual gifts
they have no
Worlds.
When gifts happen
Worlds don’t have them.
Yes.
Gods too are lovers
like Spirits

2) The Three Divisions of Time

Seeping into Yesterday,
I, not flowing in
Today
froze in ‘day before
yesterday’
having no time to melt.

The minutes are
but veritable milestones.
In the wind of sorrow
bounced and battered

the poem that melts,
so moved,
in the darkness of
my tongue
would gain its voice
from the light you
would give tomorrow

with the word having gone dead
climbing the wall and
moving ahead.
3) Need

Just like ‘parrot-hunger
Suffice if there are
Fruits of Syllables.

Why can’t you say
At once ?
That it’s sickening?

Swallowing atrocious
Delays
I can’t satiate
My hunger.

3) This is No Response

I have no response to
your letter.
Tears can never be written
in a piece of paper.
My problem is that
I wished to get back the
Loan
that I had given elsewhere,
from You.
My failure is that
I was born dead.
For those share of my heart
that have suffered loss
let’s pay homage.
If only time would block
My ebbs and flows
from reaching your shores
my thanks will be million and more.

4) Resolutions

In night, light of seven hues
were resolved.
Flooding waters were resolved
by the reservoirs.
Space resolved the planets.
Liquids resolved the solid Substances.

And the soothing comforts
listed low were resolved by separations:
Memories by forgetfulness,
Gods, by suspicions,
Trees, by silent seeds,
Deaths, by relationships.
That which resolves the battles with you
is my love.

And empty worlds
will be resolved by
your and my ‘moving apart’ .

5) Beautiful

Oh, mountaneous breeze! My
Love, who caresses me to
relieve me of the pain of
Summer
Between You and Me
what at all is there to
Experience…?
“Sorrow”, said Religion.
“Indeed Ailment” said the Society.
“Obscenity” cried those
who are obscene.
‘”Alas, am I not there?”
screamed the Almighty
Within and Without
turning ‘beauty-personified’!

6) You and I

You are the
diamond necklace
that has fallen
into my begging bowl.

The rainbow that has
surfaced on the rims.

Everlasting illumination;
a merciful ocean.

You are my love’s
wholesome expansion.

Yet, it is You
whom I refute
and dispute.

7) Will

Applying the mill-smoke upon the tobacco-bed
with a plastic garland
we made you lie down.

Indeed we have kept your breath
all too safely
in Carbon Monoxide.

Oh, Nature!
Please don’t rot and die.

Oh, please don’t search for your
ground water-jar!
Your grandsons are playing with it.

Destroying your vast forest
we’ve placed multi- storied structure.
Oh, don’t keep it in mind!

“Are we going to carry it along
when we undertake our final journey…?
_ this question we can’t ask of you.

For, you might do just that.

Already Ozone Will has
impediments aplenty.

When you called out to bless
your beloved Jacob was not sent.

For consanguinity
we have felled the Jacobean Tree.

Covering with sheep-skin, we brought ‘concrete cousin’
to stand in front of you.

Oh, Nature!, please don’t rot and die!

Please give us a little more time.
Let’s try what best we can.
The reason being, our days to come
rely on your Will indeed!

8) Request

It’s you who complete
a significant portion of my poems
with your facials and
figments of Imagination
just like those reviews
reserved for me.

While going past
lanes of sorrow
running or creeping
seeing sign-boards
of your shops
in alien language
I turn terror-stricken.

I never knew other tongues.

I don’t even rarely
hold your hand
and show you the
darknesses
familiar to eyes.

Then, where lies the
array of fire-stones for
light in me?

Let us dwell in the Land of Love only _
Unconditionally.

9) Wars?

There will be no need for
the name of ‘Father-Land’
to those
who are the tattered remains
of Warfare. Henceforth there need be
no reason
for them to loathe
and explode
and to batter,
as if it is some form of deep prayer.
For evaluating and respecting
the strengths and values of Life
with not just the scales of War
the need for classrooms
would rise.

That too would be buried in sands,
thanks to our terrible Curriculam.

In wounds, blindness
mental aberrations
and other handicaps can there be any day
when the relevance and significance
of success and failure
would be apprehended?
Or wrongs be set right?
Pain alone would remain
deepening, accumulating
in the lakes of Humanity
as dregs,
everywhere.

Oh, leave it. For women
no need to spend on
Valentine’s Day, Anniversaries
and Feasts. Henceforth
we save our homes
from Fathers’ Day!
and our country from
National Celebrations?

Claiming to sow the seeds of
Love and Justice but having
buried them indeed.

From now on, it is in Warfare
lies our Welfare.

10) The Key

That which proved elusive
despite using the all too long ladle
and probing the well
for a long time. On lying down all stretched
with the face upward
revealed itself very clearly
on the ceiling
inserted in the
strait of
the lustrous light-glass.

If I attempt to take it _
Will the glass break?
Or, the ceiling leak?

With sunken face and
grey hairs
the Key.

Searching in the open space
and getting it in a tiny
nail particle,
leaping,
it sat atop the
peak.

I told it the ‘thousand and odd’ tales of
Arabian Nights
during day-time.

Now, together with the
loss of my own self
my search for the Key too
ceased to be.

10) Humanity since Eden

Leaving the garden
where have we come to a stop?

With the wood moving forward
and waging War
it was but you who won.

Constructing Seas in the vacuum
I froze them.

We wandered along the
sky-lanes,
we flew the kites downward
yet we were worried
for the horns growing amidst silky wings
and for the new horse-shoes
that have come to stick on
soft feet,
for the ‘closeness’ that breathed
in love turning into stench
with the mysteries leaving,
waking up from intoxication.

In twenty commands
we block out movement.
In calculations and computations
we have displaced all voices.
And, we had left those swings that go up
and down, in the garden.

My Beloved! bless me
with the boon of our
First Day of Birth!

11) A Cord

Clinging to the wall of night
in a tight grip
for very many ages
the cord lay there.

Whether it remained there
liking the compound wall
and the pitch darkness
and whether it stayed on
all hungry,
alive and breathing
none cared to have
any concern.

After very many years have
sped by,
in anxiety whether the
cord has metamorphosed into a snake
the toads kept going past
every now and then.
As there grew eyes for the cord
and also tears coming out of them
‘Could it be that in the cool chillness
the exclusive odour of snake
became all enhanced?’

_ so the security-guards said to each other.

13) Shadow

From way back they’ve
started seeing me with the shadow.
And, it became a must for me
to sleep with the shadow.
Dreaming with the shadow
I functioned with it.
I turned a shadow to my
Shadow.

In the early morn
and in the elongated evenings
the Shadow grew, stepping on me.
In the scorching heat of the midday Sun
when I wished for it the most
I remained without the Shadow.
Then, the noon Sun came to stay on, as
something stable and permanent.

They stared at me in those parties.
“Why are you without the Shadow?”
– so my friends admonished.
“Came alone?” _my daughter asked.
“Where is the Shadow?
bring it when you come to my house ?”, said she.
Stationing the Sun sans Shadow
up there
my world would revolve.
For, Shadows are not real.

ramakrishnanlatha@yahoo.com