Ganga Prasad Vimal   
 

 

To me as well

To me,

as well as to you
have the Himalayas been given,
an expanse of the ethereal.

 

And the loneliness of my soul

like yours
is caressed there,
somewhere.

 

Also the Himalayas have given

the summit of sound,
to my lips
never to be questioned
just experienced from within.
like itself - incomplete.

 

© Ganga Prasad Vimal

From: “The Talismam”, stories and poems , Forest Books, 1990

 


A list of enemies

O, God !
When I'd been making a list of my enemies
Your name was written
Before anyone else.

Why wouldn't you be my enemy after all?
Even if you don't exist
You're in the faith of a large number
But presently you don't exist
In my reality in the awareness that
In someone's casual utterance
Or in his writing
if you do exist...

I won't be taken in by all that
It's surprising
In awareness of the world around
Even if you don't exist
Your name and stories
Have obsessed the people.

Your immense popularity
Is a cause of wonderment
Quietly you're in the fear of everyone
In happiness too
In the stony; at the corner of the field
And even in the spick and span nook of the house
In the ornate inanimate.

I'm not apprehensive of your being such
I'm only apprehensive that for everyone
You're as what his life-style demands
When you become one for a group
I'm afraid then that
Your style is so innovative when
Having attacked others
I'm convinced now that you
Constantly get others involved in fights
In doubts
And then you compel them
To give themselves in to you.
O, God, I'm making a list!
Here
Are all those – your loved ones
Who’ve carried out what not in your name.

In this list are included
Eve Those names
Who ceased to be long back renown attained

The list of these orphan enemies
O, my orphan God,
Ends only with you -
Stunned!

© Ganga Prasad Vimal
Inedited, poem supplied by the author
Translation from Hindi: V.K. Joshi

Ganga Prasad Vimal was born in 1939 in a small Himalayan town of India . He is one of the most interesting poetic voices in modern Indian poetry, as well as a very gifted novelist. He edited a weekly magazine called Deshseva and later joined a college of Delhi University as a member of the teaching faculty. He participated in many national and international writer’s conferences, was elected a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society ( U.K. ) in 1982, vice president of the Authors’ Guild of India in 1986. His literary talents have won him the Poetry People Prize, the Euverov Metal, a diploma of the AA University in Italy as well as the special prize by the U.P. government for his book Modernity and Literature as well as the Dinkar Prize by the government of Bihar for his poetry collection Bodhi Briks. His work has been translated and published in a large number of languages: English, French, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Italian…Presently he is professor at the Centre of Indian Languages at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi