AS IF ENTERING THE WOMB

Written by Piyush Thakkar

Translated from the Gujarati by Dileep Jhaveri

Narrated by Bill Wolak

India

When he woke up

The sleep had slowly departed

Like a receding tide in the sea

And yet a little dampness was smeared in his eyes

 

The legs were not aching

The head was not leaden

There was no sentiment of chagrin

The mind was not engaged in any manipulation anyhow

 

Time was swathed out

Like feebly flowing waves

Of the ebbing sea

Or

He was stretched out

As if

All the accounts with Time were settled!

 

As if

An afterglow was laid

Like neither darkness nor light

Leaning on indolently drifting wind

He sat up

While rising to his feet

Today the legs felt no burden of the body

As if the ground itself was elevated in midair

He took a few steps

There was no rush to reach anywhere

Nor any restiveness

Like a breeze entering a tree

He entered through the door

 

How can one say that all was in order

Of course, he knew that

Something different was going on within him

 

In the end

Earth had entered within him through sleep

And made him her own

 

As if he had

Re-entered the womb.

 

Born in 1979 in rural Gujarat, Piyush Thakkar has earned a Master in Fine Arts and has earned several awards. His research on the painters Vasudaev Gaitonde and Gulam Mohammed Sheikh is highly praised. He has been honored by the Sahitya Akademi Delhi that has published his poetry collection. Besides being a poet and painter, he also is a publisher of several books of poetry and criticism by leading writers.

 

Dileep Jhaveri is a practicing general physician based in Mumbai and a well-known Gujarati poet and playwright. He has published several collections of poetry in Gujarati. Recently, he has published three books of poetry in the United States, Once This Mist Clears (2014), Fire Writes in Several Scripts (2015), Magic and Miracles (2017), as well as a group of non-fiction essays entitled The House of Three Widows all done by The New Feral Press. His latest translation is titled Breath Becoming a Word: Contemporary Gujarati Poetry in English Translation published by Sahitya Akademi Ahmedabad.