Jacques Derrida, I Presume

(A free translation of my poem in Malayalam “Po Mone Derrida”)

Wonder why it took

So long for you to figure it out
After the heady Tel Quel days ,
After all the scuffles with gendarmes
And the occupation of universities and factories
(Occupation, yes, no quibbling, one has to give you that)

We knew it all along,

All those good old things
Were a big fart:
A war to end all wars,
Making the world safe for democracy,
Freedom of expression,
Prisoners of conscience,
Imperialist aggression,
Cultural offensive,
Peaceful Co-existence,
Détente.

And you, Michel and others farted a lot more:

Logocentrism,
Structurality
Identity politics,
Panapticon,
Hybridity,
Macaulay’s godhead,
And the rest of the gobbledygook.

But you were luckier than

The UN chemical weapons inspectors:
Your trace was more visible
Than what they were looking for.
Of course, we continue to search for
The differance between
An American president
And an African-American president.
But your spectres really take the cake.
Imagine old man Karl at the stroke of midnight
Coming up from the netherworld like Hamlet senior
To strew the world with bloody corpses!
To call it wishful thinking
Would be the understatement of the century.
Nothing happened to the world.
But you fucked-up the lives of
Hordes of college teachers across the world.
Few of them are fond of alternate epistemologies;
But biting off more than what they could chew
They are frantically searching for
Alternate systems of medicine
To plug their leaking bottoms.
Ha! That will make another of your gags:
What they didn’t know hurt them.
But they are luckier than you might have thought:
Nothing can beat
Good old cynicism and skepticism!

Thoughtless Fox
(A free rendering (more or less) into English, while travelling in Parashuram Express from Kottayam to
Kozhikode on Monday, 13 January, 2014, of Kalpetta Narayanan's poem in Malayalam, 'kurukkan',
published in the "Mathrubhumi' weekly of January 12, 2014)

I saw a fox today morning

Where the lane to my home
Took a hesitant turn.
But gone -
Before I had finished
Blinking in disbelief!

So you have improved

Upon your vanishing trick.
Makes me wonder -
I thought we had outpaced you
Many times over -
Never mind if some of us are left far behind
Licking our wounds -
Have you been monitoring us
In your radar like a transport commissioner
To reset your speeds?

So nonchalant , so defiant
This cohabitation of yours,
Unchanged for thousands of years.
The gods in the temples have left
Cursing and grumbling,
The demons on the screen
Are poor imitations,
No caves or thickets
To lie low in daylight,
The last of the owls have left the trees
Giving in to the neon lights without a fight.

But there you are, reminding us

That miracles still happen,
Drawing your own boundaries,
Appearing and disappearing at will.
The tiger and the elephant are
Mere domestic animals in the wild,
Never out of range
Of our guns and cameras.

You are still a match for anybody

In looks and wits,
Never heard of the word 'compromise',
Pricking ears still straight.
No grapes have turned sour for you,
Except in Aesop's wild fancies.
Darwin did not think much of you,
But you bore him no grudge.

Coming to think of it -
It is so comforting
To have a guerilla like you,
So near, yet out of sight,
Spilling no beans,
In high security zones.
No bending backwards to look straight,
No tail-wagging routine,
Not larger than a dog,
Yet so dogged.

Yes,
For humans you are a glorious totem -
And a sigh from the distant past.

നാല്പതു കഴിഞ്ഞപ്പോള്‍ പാല്‍പായസം

നീയറിഞ്ഞില്ലേ
മൊയ്തു ഇംഹാന്‍സിലാണ്.
ചെറിയ ചികിത്സയൊന്നും പോരെന്നു
ബാലകൃഷ്ണന്‍ മാഷ്‌ പറഞ്ഞു.
പണ്ടും നാട്ടില്‍ വന്നാല്‍ ഇടക്കൊക്കെ
കാവും കുളവും കൊച്ചമ്മിണിയും
പട്ടാളത്തില്‍ പോയി മരിച്ച ഗോവിന്ദേട്ടനും
ഓത്തുപള്ളിയിലേക്കുള്ള വഴിയിലെ വെള്ളത്തണ്ടും
സൈനബി അമ്മായിയുടെ മീന്പത്തിരിയും
അമ്മാളുക്കുട്ടിയോടു കേട്ട തെറിയും
വി എസ്സ് അനില്‍കുമാറും
റീപ്ലേ ചെയ്യാറുണ്ടായിരുന്നു.
ടൌണില്‍ പോയി രണ്ടു സ്മാള്‍ അടിച്ചു
മള്‍ടിപ്ലെക്സില്‍ ഒരു സിനിമയൊക്കെ
കണ്ടു കഴിഞ്ഞാല്‍ മാറും.
ഇതിപ്പോ നേരം വെളുത്തു അന്തിയാകുന്നതുവരെ
ഇത് തന്നെ പറഞ്ഞാല്‍ . . .

ലീവ് തീരുന്നതിനു മുന്‍പ്

എങ്ങനെയെങ്കിലും ശരിയാക്കണം.