I thought only of good things,
Only good deeds I contemplated,
And relentlessly strove to achieve them,
I was happy
And wanted others to be happy
Not mine, I felt, to find faults in others,
I chose the good in everyone and moved on.
They watched me closely,
The neighbours,
All those around me.
They could not bear to see
The wings that had sprouted on my body.
This did not suit the flock I belonged to
I was warned,
It befitted a woman
To not look around,
‘Stay mute forever,’ they told me
‘Focus your bright eyes
Only on the dark abyss,
Latch and lock up
Your bold and soaring heart!’
My heart rebelled withal,
So many fences and fetters!
No place in the world for me?
I pulled up my deep roots from the earth
Crossed the fence and flew away.
To leave behind one’s people
And one’s family
Is no easy task;
It is the cross I have to bear…
So many onslaughts
To clip my wings,
To shackle my legs;
I faced and braved them all.
Travelling, I learnt about the world,
Learnt the language of hearts,
Understood the ways of the world
And lapped up the lessons it teaches.
And yet all that is but a little,
Just a fistful of earth.
So I’ll fly; I’ll fly much, much further
All the treasures of the universe will be mine!
In a valley by a river,
On the branch of an enormous tree,
I rest my tired body
And let my broken wings heal.
Ever headed towards the light,
My journey
Will lead me one day
To encounter my kin again
All those who maligned me, I’ll meet them all
Who knows, perhaps they might even say
‘You are the treasure of our community’
And shower praise on me.
Siragu Mulaitha Penn – Siragu Mulaitha Penn Pg 54–56
Days that Pass without a Trace
Desultorily, life passes by
The evening sun disappears behind the hill,
Through the sleepy streets,
I walk, all alone
My head filled with aimless thoughts.
The snow falls in patches
Over my shoulders
My sweater, deep blue at first,
Turns ashen grey.
Breakfast in the morning,
Lunch at mid-day,
Supper in the evening,
Money in hand,
No worries in the world.
I sit by the fireplace,
Holding my hands over the fire
Rubbing and warming them.
Meanwhile the snow has covered
The tracks I made when walking on the road.
Thadayamillatha Natkal Ovva Pg 35
I am Composing a Song
I am composing a song
I am writing these lyrics to tell the world
Why this contrarian path I tread.
This is my testimony.
I am a fallen woman, they say,
A prostitute…
One can be a slave of love
But to talk about sex is wrong
Bearing a child is alright, they say,
But to talk about the orifice from
Where the child emerges is wrong…
Ultimately –
To state it unequivocally
The death sentence has been pronounced on me.
But until the last millisecond
Before my head is severed from my shoulders
I will live.
This is my body
My make-up
My jewellery
My clothes
My foot-wear
My odour
My religion
My love
This house where I live
This road I walk on
This book I read
All these
Will remain mine
And will be what I want
Only thus will I live!
Until the last millisecond
I will live.
Oru Padalai Ezhuthikondu Irukkiren
Ovva Pg 48
Homage to Her
They say that she is dead.
In turn each of her murderers
Weigh their actions on the weighing scales
Of their justice and judge themselves
To have done nothing wrong in killing her.
She lifted her unveiled face,
Held her chest high and asked questions
Displaying her visage to the world;
She travelled alone in trains
She sat at a round table with men
And talked to them;
She loved and then, one day
She asked for an Islamic divorce.
With fierce pride and chest-thumping
They say,
That by killing her,
They had boosted the cherished honour of mankind.
By killing her,
The murderers
Have become saviours
Lionized and feted by the entire village!
Avalukkana Anjali Ovva Pg 54
A Journey
Like me, the moon is in tatters…
Like a bougainvillea flower
Like a rootless tree
I lie on my back
While you graze on me…
You were groping for something in me
When I was fully clothed.
Now that you have stripped me
And made me naked
You are still
Seeking something in me;
And I lie here numb and unaware.
Face rubbing against face,
Sucking at a lip and grabbing me tight,
With all your exertions on me
My stomach is pleading hunger.
In your lust and passion
Crossing all limits,
All hot and steamy,
How will you understand my heart;
My heart – that has been scorched to ash?
As you suck at me
All I can do
Is to count the time that passes,
Of all else totally clueless.
Move your sweaty body
Move it away from me quickly
I am dying,
What are still seeking in me?
My life lies in the cash that you
Will count and hand over to me.
Quickly, remove your sweaty body
Move it away from me…
Yaththirai – Siragu Mulaitha Penn Pg 52
Incompatible
They were talking about my body,
My body, that lies there
Where I had cast it away.
They don’t accept me as one of them
Because they do not want to accept that I too
Can have solid views and do not budge from them.
The night and the moon do not attract me, I’m not like them,
They are angry with me because I refuse
To be subjected to their black magic
And dwell in caves of inky darkness,
And become a genie – corked inside a bottle.
They do not accept
My determination to not let their strictures
Make me stray from my chosen path.
I want to confront them face to face
When they challenge me and ask,
How will you grow without any sustenance?
Without any help from the world outside you?
Those who have seen my magic wings are amazed.
My simple and plain words
Encircle them like an endless snake;
Unable to free themselves, they struggle
And stumble…
I again reinvent myself,
An even sharper me I see.
There my body still lies
There, where I cast it off.
Once more, I curb my intense urge
To embrace my body again,
Because…
Because I do not wish to become
A genie corked inside a bottle…
Ovva – Ovva Pg 17
Then and Now
He wants to play – and play only with colours,
He mixes one with the other
He cooks up light and dark concoctions.
Not one plain sheet of paper
Does his heart want to let go
He draws with colours
The sun
The clouds
The flowers
The butterflies
And in their midst a small house.
And he tells me a story of how
He is running between the flowers
To catch the butterflies…
Now–
He still can’t stop himself
He draws the sun and clouds.
The sea
A long road
Moving vehicles
Thronging crowds
And in their midst, he.
He, who had been a child
Now has grown and stands tall…
Munbum Ippothum – Ovva Pg 18
Keys to Our Non-existent House
Over there, there is my house,
The house where my mother gave birth to me
The house where my father carried me on his shoulders
And played with me.
They have demolished that house
I don’t know why,
But –
Only we still have the keys,
The keys to that locked-up house.
In the courtyard of that house
I first learnt to write my alphabets
Over there, there is my house,
By the well you can see
The neem tree
That is where I had my swing,
A bit of the red rope that had been tied
For me to swing on
Is still attached to the tree…
I really don’t know why…
I don’t know what need drove
Those who demolished my house…
They have torn down the house,
But
Only we still have the keys,
The keys to that locked-up house
After our house was demolished
Appa kept crying,
Looking at the keys
The keys to that locked-up house…
Until his last breath his greatest desire
Was to relax and rest his back,
For just one day, just one part of the daylight hours,
Against a wall of that house…
His own house that he loved.
But that remained an unfulfilled dream.
Now there is no Appa
And that house where I played
On my Appa’s shoulders does not exist anymore
But
Only we still have the keys,
The keys to that locked-up house.
Illatha Veetin Savigal – Siragu Mulaitha Penn Pg 66
Tell-tale Signs
I do not know them,
Nor do they know me.
For them I am
A woman with a head-scarf,
One who walks with her head bent low,
Who speaks only with a soft low voice,
And never utters a dissenting note.
Whereas I
Cover my head only when I wish to,
Sometimes without even a dupatta over my dress
I darken my eyes with kohl
Paint my lips as I wish
Adorn myself, use perfumes
I choose my own clothes
In every colour that I like,
I drive my own vehicle
And stop where I wish.
I go for a walk in the evening
I buy street food by the road-side,
And munch on it, looking around idly
I sit under big dense trees and read magazines.
Now they say I am an apostate, a murtad,
A friend of the Devil, Iblees.
I, who have never, in any manner, hurt or harmed anyone.
And, on my wide high forehead,
Are the tell-tale signs
Of the thirty-four or more times a day
I press my head on the floor as I pray.
Adayalam Ovva Pg 42
That Ancient Village
In those sandy lanes
Lined dense with Portia trees,
In those bright houses from where
Light spills out and spreads,
In the evenings filled with the fragrance of incense-sticks,
In the sound of the muezzin’s call
And in the sound of the foot-steps of the early morning
There, that ancient village still exists.
There, where I was not loved,
Where my pleas were never given ear to,
Where I was made to shed copious tears,
There, that ancient village
Still continues to exist.
Oh Eravur, my land, my soil,
Remind me again of the evidence that I left behind.
The palm-fronds I swung on,
The papaya leaves I used against the drizzling skies
The areca nut palm-spathes we towed along as chariots
The fragrance of the fresh ginger growing under the banana trees
The flavour of the juicy Willard mangoes running between the fingers
The aroma of the jackfruit pulp that pervades the entire street
Alas! How great is my loss!
My beloved village
I was not tired of you
I did not move away.
When the time for harvesting comes
This crazy state will change
The time will come when you will again
Weave the cloth that’s mine by right.
There is nothing more to be said
For, my footwear I’ve left behind,
There, to stay
For eternity!
Puradana Ur Ovva Pg 64
Hoor Al-ayn – The Women of Paradise
The long expanse of shaded space
Under the thorn-less jujube trees.
Fine wine, clear, filled to the brim
In cups and bowls,
Served by young boys moving around
And the meat of many birds.
Without any changes to follow the seasons
Always an abundance
Of luscious fruits.
All kinds of floor carpets
Piled one on top of the other
And on them blankets, cushions and thrones
And cots fashioned of strands of gold.
Whatever you ask for, you will get
Whatever you think of, will be yours.
How delightful –
This Firdauz!
In the shade of the jujube tree flow
Rivers of water, milk, honey and wine
And like the meat of birds
And the fruits –
The Hoor-ul Ayn…
Women regain their young bodies,
To be the wages given to men who have lived a life of good deeds;
The Hoor-ul-ayn…
Thus … even in paradise,
Women are but objects!
Hooril Eengal Ovva Pg 60
About the Book
Spanning the three decades of the deadly Sri Lankan civil war, Ummath highlights the plight of
women across communal and ethnic divides.
Through the lives of three women, Thawakkul, Yoga and Theivanai – one a social activist, the other a Tamil Tiger forced into joining the movement as a child, and the third a disillusioned fighter for the Eelam – the novel lays bare the complex equations that ruled life in Sri Lankan society during and in the aftermath of the civil war.
In Ummath, Sharmila Seyyid – once forced to live in exile for her outspoken, liberal views – interrogates Islamist fundamentalism, Tamil nationalism and Sri Lankan majoritarian chauvinism with her characteristic courage, honesty and sensitivity.
About the Author
SHARMILA SEYYID is a writer, a social activist and a fearless critic of the injustices in society. She has two books of poems and this novel to her credit.
GITA SUBRAMANIAN, who took up translation after a long teaching career in Hong Kong, has published four translations of Tamil novels. In 2010, she won the Nalli Thisai Ettum award for the best Tamil to English translation.
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First published in India in 2018 by Harper Perennial
An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
www.harpercollins.co.in
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Copyright © Sharmila Seyyid 2018
Translation Copyright © Gita Subramanian 2018
P-ISBN: 978-93-5277-901-7
Epub Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 978-93-5277-902-4
Sharmila Seyyid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.