Udan's Quarantine Poems (Translated by me)

Around this time last year, Udan Fernando, a critic and an analyst of all sorts requested me to translate his first collection of poems.  

I'm not a pro when it comes to translating poems. I did the best I could. 

01. Warmth 

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Wait a bit

Who’s this?

It’s me 

Here to check your temp

Give me a minute?

I’ll get into my pants fast

Pants won’t be enough, Mister

Where’s your mask?

Sorry aney, 

I always forget

Forehead straight

Hmm! Hmm!

No issues!

Thirty-six point-five 

When does it get worse?

Oh, when its tops thirty-seven 

We check using the mercury also

Just to make quite sure

02. Pink Colour Green Colour

Those who’ve just migrated

Move to the Army counter

Come Sir, tell

Passport number only

Everything else

We already have

Ok Sir, everything’s in order

Your registration successful 

Next

You’re off to quarantine

Now, Sir, this is the system 

Pink token for hotels

Green tokens for government hostels

This decision is irrevocable

Think well and tell

Sheraton Kosgoda

Ten thousand per day

Yes, Sir, full board with taxes

A beautiful view at sunset 

Government locales here and there

Kandakadu, Minneriya

Rantambe, Pelvehera

Still no place announced 

Army runs everything, Sir

Dormitories only 

Shared Accommodation

Sir, if you’ve not decided yet

Step aside

Give this other Sir some room

Come Sir, tell

03. Lines and Circles 

It’s impossible right, Dileepa

To understand

Those you have underlined

Those circled by me

In that last poem by Sekara

In the Roman tenth chapter-

The one you sent me 

Along with Nomiyemi

04. PCR

Those doing PCR

Step to this side of the queue 

Sit here

Take off spectacles

Look up

As if staring at the ceiling

Will it hurt doctor?

Will it take a lot of time?

Before we leave

Do we get the report?

Nothing to worry

A Q tip cotton swab goes

Up your nostril

To the back of your throat

In a minute we’re done 

Oh my! Doctor

I’m so scared

Slowly, slowly do it

Please, please Doctor

You’re not a baby

No time to pamper you

You people go around the world, don’t you?

You should have stayed in Singapore

Mister, in two or three days 

The report will be faxed

To wherever you’re staying

The water bottle’s for you

Those short-eats over there, too

05. Off Route

Look, Mister Driver

Where are you taking us?

It’s been an hour

Since we got on the bus

No one knows

Where they are 

Taking us 

You people will be

In Punani

Down Batticaloa way

It will take around

Six to seven hours 

To get there

With no stops

Anywhere

Now everyone

Make sure to go the washroom

Cause there’s no stops

Along the way

We get an escort

The jeep with red white blue lights 

Leads the show

Followed by five buses

Carrying people to quarantine

The white ambulance 

comes last

With its red bulb twirling

The parade goes on

At full high speed

Because it’s past ten

No one overtakes

Thanks to the jeep lights

And sirens

Of the ambulance

Lights look weird

Through the windshield

Bus music

Louder than sirens 

Sha-Lanka channel

Keeping the driver awake

At this time

Be it EM ES or Weraliyadda

Rookantha, Santhush

And even Kapuge

Sings Davasak Pela

To a six-eight beat

Weariness sets in

A daylong trip

No beauty in music

Instead

A disty-didin sound

Slaps the ears. 

I think

Just before I fell asleep

I heard

Menike, I’m Coming Home Again-

That hit by EM ES. 

‘Menike Mama Aye Gedara Enawa’, a popular song by M S Fernando

 Dawasak Pela, a popular song by Gunadasa Kapuge

 Disty-didin - the unbearable beat of bus music

06. Burning Issues 

Ascot would be a perfect, Officer

How can one have Arrack

In this hot sun

Alone

Beer is best

In warm, humid weather

But if they find cans

Y’all be in trouble, Officer

Ok, Officer,

We understand 

How serious this is

How about gettin’ some

In a Sprite bottle, Officer?

 07. England

The vaatha set

Arrives today it seems

Who else

Other than those from England

Don’t think so

Those posh people

From England

Won’t come this way

(Few hours later)

Here..

The Airport PCR team

Has put that set

Into hostels close by

Until results come

For two to three days

On a temporary basis

But in full luxury 

(Three days later)

Adoh, 

Here’s some absolutely thrilling news

Two are positive

From London, it seems

They deserve it

Those swollen-headed, arrogant jerks

It’s scary, men

What if they send

The whole jingbang

This way

For quarantine

08. Germany

The German set 

Lands today.

Seamen 

From Hamburg

Two hundred and sixty

Altogether 

If they come here

We’re done

Upset place

Yes, many Germans died

Only a little better

Than Italy

England was hit later

(A day later) 

Adoh, Good Morning,

Machan, we’re through

Those Germans have landed

In Mattala

Private doctors 

Handled their PCRs

In a quarantine center

Somewhere in Galle

No men, all over

Had the last one last night

It’s not good to smoke, machan

Until you have to take a dump

09. Hela Havula

Everyone come

With passport details

What’s the number

Tell again

N...ok

After that?

Address please

Gal..kissa 

Grama Niladhari Division?

Can’t remember? How on earth?!

It’s ok

Let’s put it as

Two hundred and three 

Name with initials

Esss..Ech Pernandu

What does Ech stand for?

What? Hithesi?

Very strange name

Where’d you say your father was from?

Never heard of a village called Hela Aula

Ok, ok

Hela Hawula

Ok, mister, now go

This is for the certipiket

You get 

The day you leave this place

Our Commander 

Signs it

Yes, Sachendra Sir

You know why?

*Hela Havula is a coalition formed to protect Sinhala language and native culture

10. Tale of the Corporal 

“Tea has come ..everyone”

 Corporal Basnayake screams

 Standing in line

 One metre apart

 Everyone takes a steaming cup of milk tea

 From the filter

How are you, Corporal?

Asks someone in quarantine

Don’t even talk about it, mister

Haven’t been home

In three months

I take the bus 

To go home

I either have to go to the Pettah

And take a bus from there

Else, go to Dambulla

And then come back 

To Tissamaharama

Now tilt that filter back a bit

To pour the milk

That’s all we got today

Cooks at the mess are busy

They cook for nearly

Two thousand people daily

Must take another bus from Tissa 

To get to Debarawewa

Mahinda Mahattaya’s area

True that Sajith Mahattaya built houses

But that was all useless 

Should contest from Colombo

Father’s area noh? Kehelwatte

I’m fed up, mister

Been wearing

This mask

For three months

At a stretch

11. Love Your Neighbour 

      (Holy Bible)

     

Can’t you 

somehow find 

A pack of

Dunhill?

Will call the Lieutenant

That's the mate 

Next to your bed

Right after he wakes up 

In the morning

By ten 

Until three

I watched YouTube, Doctor

Not sure if I 

Disturbed you

 

Sorry

Although beds are lined up

One and a half meters apart

Everyone gets closer

When they stay here

A week or two

It’s pointless talking, Doctor

Although we’ve got

Gold Leaf and Benson here

Oh my!

The pull’s so strong

I’m going to have a bath

Thank you, Doctor

For bringing my food

I’ll bring yours

In the afternoon

Aaa..... Doctor

Here’s Your towel

Looks like you’ve forgotten

I found it inside the toilet 

With this piece of soap

12. Quarantine Week

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Saturday and Sunday

Does not make a week, Nirodha

Tea at six

Meals for morning

Tea at ten

Meals for noon

Tea at three

Meals for night

That’s how it is here

All seven days

13. Sekara and Abeysekara

Early one morning

Abeysekara the Postman

Distributes Sekara’s letters 

Poetry in Nomiyemi

Removed carefully

Glued with affection

Wrapped in an e-package

Fastened with dew drops

 

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Sometimes just one line is enough

 

When words cannot be spoken, people write. Words just don't fall. They are a product of histories, a lot of thought and of journeys. For the writer or the lyricist, words are gems. It is like a gemstone miner sifting the river bed to find a gem. To those who have known the struggle, there's nothing more joyful as finding one. Same goes for lyricists. They look forward. Then they carefully stitch one word with another. Turn them into lines. Yet, incredibly, an intricate art of work. In this process of writing lyrics, the styling and the shaping continues. The greatest lyrics ( let's say the most powerful ones) will make your heart sink.  

Years ago, I wrote about lyricists. While all lyricists are important some lyricists are more important because only a very few have the ability to speak the language of music. To put it in a nutshell: a lyricist's job is to turn an experience or a thought into a few lines. It really does require a lot of work. In fact, writing lyrics can be harder and more important than the song itself, because it must be well thought out and must hit the mark all the time. This is what I believe. The words that bite you, feed you, cure you, all that is created by a lyricist.

However, we hardly get to know about the lyricist in a song. In theory, once a song is released, it belongs to the audience. Thereafter, it is the audience's song. The lyricist dies. Sadly. There was a time when lyricists lost out to composers and singers. Not long ago, when private FM channels and TV channels took over the airwaves, broadcasters talked about everything under the sun but forgot to speak of the song they were about to play. Clearly, not much has changed since then. Yet, the public outrage that has taken place over this issue, with many musicians openly expressing their resentment for not giving credit to songwriters, has compelled the media to give visibility to the lyricist every time they play a song. Now that's something we've collectively achieved and must be appreciated. Yet, interestingly, even Google doesn't carry much information about lyricists. 

 

While lyrics matter, and without them you may not truly understand what the singer is trying to convey, they carry a certain amount of emotional weight. The amount of emotional weight that a song carries depend on the choice of words. While the lyrics  in some songs may not sound that great, in some they are very powerful. And some may require lot of words to convey a thought while some may not. In some instances just one line is enough to catch the heart of the listener. 

 

Think of the last album or track, or a certain verse, you heard. If the words in that particular song or verse you heard made you overwhelm, then the writer of that song has done his / her job right.

Two days ago, I was reminded of a small gathering that took place two years ago in which I was a part of. While there is language in the drinks, and the women and men we share it with, that night my workmates (the majority were men) and I had our choice of drink: whiskey, followed by chatting and storytelling. We didn't forget to sing in the middle of all that. 

My friend, Sithu, who is eloquent and funny, moreover also philosophical and moving with the same ideologies as I have, suggested a song that day. Perum Puragena Aaa Sansare… by Senanayake Weraliyadda.  It must be also said that Sithu and I are lovers of music and not a single moment goes by without humming or singing songs whenever we meet and between work hours.  

We sang. And that night, my good friend gave great insight to this song about which I had not given enough thought about all my life. 

I must have been 9 or 10 years old when I first heard Senanayake Weraliyadda. Sixteen years later, on that night, when my friend pointed out this single line in the song and asked me what I think about it, I am not sure how I reacted to his question. But I remember telling him this: whoever wrote the lyrics is a brilliant writer. 

It seems that some writers are ingenious when it comes to capturing life using words. Mahakanumulle Vajira Himi is certainly one of them.  Mahakanumulle Vajira Himi wrote Perum Puragena Aaa Sansare after witnessing the suicide of a woman on the railway track when traveling by train. It was later found out that the girl couldn't get over her lost love. 

The song ends with a remarkable line that perhaps correlates with Buddhism.

දිවිය මොන තරම් සුන්දර දෝ - දුකම කොයිතරම් සතුටක් දෝ  

This life’s so beautiful - And this sadness is so much fun

The Enlightened One states that having to be born means having to suffer. Vajira Himi thus tells us that people are acutely conscious of the pain that the world is made of, and yet they find it quite pleasurable. 

We fall sick, we fail exams, we lose jobs, we lose love, we lose wealth, we lose property and amidst all that chaos we still try to hold on to life. Take more exams, take more jobs, earn more money, find more lovers and the list goes on. 

So, there it is. Sometimes just one line is enough. Because it tells us so much. 

This is my version of the song: Perum Puragena Aa Sansare. 

For the Dell Studio version, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4KGx-u81wA

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වලාකුළු

වලාකුළු තරම් 

අත් හැරීම ගැන දන්න 

වෙන කිසිවක්
නැති තරම්ය. 

වලාකුළු-
සියල්ලම එකතු වුනු පසු
එකවර බිමට
අත් හරින.

අපි,
සියල්ලම එකතු වුනු පසුත්
තව තවත්
එකතු කරන.

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Accidents

I am accident-prone
Occasionally break things 
Drop a water glass 
Knock a plate on the sink wall-
I'm clumsy.
I calculate answers properly
but forget to keep the decimal point. 
Type documents 
and close them without saving.
Spill tea in practiced carelessness.
Misspell a word or miss a word when typing.

Sometimes I
hurt you-scratch you-scrape you 
unthinkingly. 
But in all that 
there's love.

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ගලක් වුනත්
හිතක් පපුවක් තියෙන 

යාන්තන් අඩිය පෑගුනත්
හෙලවෙන


15.09.2019

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Delicate Things

The delicate things we do,

Sit at a distance in restaurants
and pickpocket gazes

Sometimes you take walks around me
talking to people over the phone

Brush fingers accidentally

and in the occasional anger
you throw in a text message
    we make love

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There's rhythm in everything, only if you care to notice

*Everyone takes a break. Some take breaks from their job. Some take breaks from their education. Some take a break from their friends. Some take a break from internet. Some people retire from their career to take a break. Although some breaks are permanent, some are not.  Among them are those who take breaks from writing and get back again. 

P.S- I didn't write anything for almost two years and  I'm going back again. 

Source: Google 

Everything in life has a rhythm. Only if we care to notice it. Only if we care to listen to it. Life is like a dance, from morning to evening, from month to month and then from year to year we keep doing various things. But way too often we get carried away with things, we loose track and we forget what we were actually trying to do. In the middle of all that, sometimes we worry what other people  think of us. We worry that our rhythm is not on a equal footing as theirs. We worry when people reject our rhythm. We no longer want to feel the natural pulse within ourselves. Instead, we give way to what others want us to become. Sometimes our plans and ideas, the way we want to live and grow, shrink and stall in relationship with the plans and ideas of others. The magic lies in how you handle it. The trick is finding your own rhythm and dancing to it no matter what others might tell you. It’s about being bold and being confident about what you want to do and what you want to become in life. 

Rhythm is important. To become a good dancer, you need to develop good rhythm in your body. Rhythm is important for a dancer to make sure that he or she is taking the right steps at the right time. Rhythm is important for a singer. Rhythm keeps a song moving along, it gives motion. Rhythm helps to understand if a singer is singing the song in the right phase of whether he or she is going out of the way. Rhythm is important for a listener who listens to a drummer. It helps the listener to keep aware of where the beats are. The rhythm also helps a drummer know if he or she is playing the music right. A rhythmic gymnast must master the rhythm. It is to the rhythm in music they swing in circles, skip on the rope, jump through loops, bounce, throw or roll and what not. Rhythm plays a major role in their performance. They may score less if they break the rhythm during a performance. And so it is for a synchronized swimmer. A synchronized swimmer’s movements depend on the rhythm of the choreography. Having a sense of musicality and rhythm in the body helps an artistic swimmer always perform better. It doesn’t stop there. Even running needs rhythm. To be better at running it is important for a runner to take it slow on the first few days and gradually increase their phase. The faster you start the slower you will finish a race. The slower you start the more you can keep running. A runner, therefore must know when to be fast and when to slow down in a race. 

Come to think of it. There is rhythm in your body too. Everytime you sway your hips, you sway it to a particular tempo. Your eyes blink to a rhythm. You wiggle your toes to a rhythm. You clap to a rhythm. Be it fast or slow. The most important rhythm we all take part in is breathing. You heart is a drum with a unique sound and it beats to sacred rhythms. When you climb a staircase, your heart beats fast. When you are at sleep it slows down. We take our breathing for granted, usually every minute without being aware of it.  We don’t know whether it is fast or slow, whether we hold it or not, whether it is shallow or deep, but the breath keeps going. Most of us don’t pay attention to the breath – the in-breath, the out-breath and it’s rhythm, the connection. It is interesting how we just don’t pay attention to a simple thing happening inside our body. 

Even a house can have a rhythm in the way the windows have been placed or in the way the lamps or bulbs have been fixed. There is a pattern or rhythm in the way the tiles are laid. There is repetition of pattern in the way the arcs are built in the nine archs bridge in Ella. The repeated arches in the Roman Colosseum is another example of rhythm in world architecture. Clothes can have a rhythm in the way that stripes or dots follow a pattern. Even day and night occurs to a rhythm. The earth is constantly rotating  and everytime it faces the sun, that part of the earth will have daytime and the otherside that doesn’t receive sunlight will have night time. The pattern keeps changing depending on earth’s rotation. Even the phases of the moon changes and repeats  over and over again in a rhythm. 

There is rhythm in things we do everyday. It could be a daily practice or a ritual. For example; going to bed at the same time every night, meditating for ten minutes every morning soon as you wake up or it could be writing a journal before you go to bed everyday or the first thing you do when you get to office is browsing through your mails. Likewise we naturally set a flow to our life and sync with it.

Take a trip by train. Sit by the window. Close your eyes and carefully listen to the noise that the train makes. Trains make rhythmic sounds when their wheels pass over a rail joint. Everytime a train steps on the fish plates that are kept on equal distances, they make the ‘clickety-clackety’ sound. If you travel by train on a windy day, you’ll hear the whooshing sound of the wind at regular intervals in a certain speed. Think of trees. They sway to the way of wind in a certain rhythm. During heavy winds they shake fast and they sway slow to a gentle breeze. We don’t notice the rhythm from a distance. Only if we stand close to a tree we will know it. Think of throwing a stone across a river. The stone skips in a way that it will bounce on the water many times to a particular rhythm before sinking. Think of a dripping tap. The water would leak to a ticking sound in a certain tempo. And so do the water that drips from a gutter after rain. Think of a time you pump gas to your vehicle. The pump makes a consistent whinning noise in a pattern when disgorging the fuel. Several years back I found that the airport baggage belt makes a noice to a rhythm. As the belt on the carousel started to go in rounds, so did the beat. It had a series of clack- clacks keeping the 4/4 time. 

Rhythm is everywhere.  In the heartbeats of our chests. In the footsteps we keep. There’s rhythm when birds flap their wings. There is rhythm in the bump of cars over uneven roads. Everything around us has a meter. Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances. The way they dance may be different. But that difference is what makes the world a fascinating one. 

It is simple. Find your own rhythm and dance to it. 

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