Noble Meat Home I am not interested at all in this Marathi woman-- Hard face, shrill voice—selling flowers On the train going from VT to Thane and Thane to VT.
The train stops at Kurla station. Muslim women get onto the train And strip off their burkhas. I look at them with a homoerotic gaze. I can map all of Kurla in that face.
“Noble Meat Home” Dirty white hens Half-fried omelette The green distempered mosque The older woman with henna-red hair with her offering of a chadar The Hajis officiating a nikaah Sufi auliyas Little children who run over burning coals A repentant sinner holding on himself The blows of a whip and Large cans overflowing with sherbet To quench the thirst of Imam Hussain.
Translated from the Gujarati by Gopika Jadeja
Shared Memory
The elephant’s memory is sharp He reminds me a lot of what I have forgotten This elephant with his deep and wide eyes looks into my eyes and I remember that there was a strange sadness in the eyes of my beloved like in this elephant’s
The elephant wanders in the boundless forests of his dreams I also wander following him Sometimes he trumpets with joy and his unknown language similarly reminds me of my deep and secret happiness The mahout does not know of our shared dream
Tying the legs of the elephant he drives him from one town to another When the elephant passes through the lanes it is a wonderful sight
One little girl appeared from the first-floor corridor of her apartment and put a banana into the elephant’s extended trunk This elephant remembers that she was me Now a young and beautiful maiden I walk behind that old elephant from one town to another to re-live what was lived before
When the mahout whips the elephant weals rise on my memory Walking long distances this elephant now tires and I too have started jumbling up my memories The elephant looks at me with sad eyes but there is still mere wonder in my eyes the wonder of having seen a huge elephant arriving in a tiny village
Translated from the Gujarati by Dileep Jhaveri
Manisha Joshi has published four collections of poems in Gujarati: Kandara, Kansara Bazar, Kandmool and Thaak. She has also published poems and travelogues in Hindi. She is a widely translated, anthologised and interviewed poet and has received Gujarat Sahitya Akademi’s first prize for her poetry collection Kandmool. Currently, she is working on her new project of culinary poems and memoirs in English. She lives in California.
Gopika Jadeja is a bilingual poet and translator writing in English and Gujarati. Her literary writing and translations have been published widely. She is committed to translating writing from marginalised communities. Gopika is working on a project of English translations of poetry from Gujarat.
Dileep Jhaveri is a bilingual writer. He has published several poems, a play and a travelogue in Gujarati. His poems and prose in English were published by New Feral Press, New York. He has been translated into many languages and invited to several countries.