SEETHAA CAN SPEAK Translation of my poem சீதைக்கும் பேசத் தெரியும் ரிஷி

SEETHAA CAN SPEAK
Translation of my poem சீதைக்கும் பேசத் தெரியும்

ரிஷி
(லதா ராமகிருஷ்ணன்)

RISHI (latha ramakrishnan)

Raamaa is my beloved husband

Do you know how many a wonderful hour I have spent in his company....

What all we have conversed, do you know?

Words invaluable!

How we revelled being together, do you know?

The forest-trees would recite those magical tales!

That he suspected me was his tragic flaw;

But, how dare you scribble that I would ever stoop low as to 

love my kidnapper!

Isn’t he who forces a woman a demon?

How can you call him a hero valiant?

Claiming that you champion my cause

why do you all the more abuse?

Won’t a person who abducts a girl

know how to ravish her?

Only because of the curse that his head would go splinters

If he were to move an inch closer 

Raavan had to maintain a decent distance.

Having Mandodhari at hand’s reach

oh, what all ‘words sacrilegious’ he spoke to me…

As far as I am concerned

he is a swine, not to be forgiven.

True, he too has the right to have a lawyer 

and defend his case.

But, I beseech you, 

please don’t try to get his release

arguing that I compared him with Raamaa 

and chose him between the two…

oh, please don’t degrade me, the victim, 

for bailing out the offender.

If your wife or daughter is taken away by force and deceit

will you mouth such 'milk of the human kindness' arguments ?

Yes, my dear husband Raamaa did doubt me -

but, because of whom? who is the cause of it all? 

whose foul deed, alas?

Unbearable pain my beloved husband must have endured

for doubting me, I know for sure.

Of course my wound would be bleeding forever, but,

how can you say that I would seek Raavan’s arms as balm?

Oh, why is it that in my case, in different ways,

everyone of you behave like Raavan always?