- Vijaya Malla (1925-1999)

Boundaries are here drawn with sanguine blood
Like ridges raised around the farms
Look! around the expanses of each and every nation
This is India, this is Pakistan,
And this is the line sublime
Soaked in blood of the Hindu and the Mussulman.
This is Germany, this is England,
This is Russia, this is Japan,
And there are Nagashaki and Hiroshima
Ravaged by atom bomb!
This is the skeleton of Europe,
Haunted by Hitler's ghost.
This is America,
The nation of dollars,
The inventor of atom bomb,
And message of peace.

Look anywhere you like,
You will see the blood sanguine making an enclosure
Where-in the men are imprisoned
Like pigeons shut in a cage.
Daughter dear!
(A day will come)
When all will join together,
Holding hands,
Bound in an embrace tight -
The Negroes, the Aryans, the Mongols,
The Polynesians, the Dravidians and the Kols,
Everything is wiping out,
Turning their eye-cups upside down,
Those lines of blood
With their tears..

Then ,
After ages -
Some day will come
When inspite of searches long
You won't find these red lines there.


Translated by: anonymous