Wednesday, July 9, 2014

That Single Arm:Traymbak Sapkale

Traymbak Sapkale

That Single Arm

I was looking through a book of pictures
My small son Raja came, looked through them too.
In one picture a rich man
was beating a poor one.
Raja asked, ‘why is that man beating the other?’
Because he is rich.
As I turned the page…
There again was the rich man,
Weapon in his right hand,
About to kill the poor man.
My son looked at this.
He said, ‘father wait a moment.’
He hurried to the table and took out
A razor blade from a drawer.
Once back, he sliced off
The attacker’s arm from the shoulder.
Then looked at me triumphantly.
I said, there are people to help him.
No, they cannot attack him,
For the vision of that single arm
Will remain before them.


Translated by Priya Adarkar

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