A Poem to an Old Lover— DadaPeer Jyman

Jun 25, 2024 | Poetry | 0 comments

TRANSLATED FROM THE KANNADA BY SHASHANK JOHRI

Sufi,
Is the love that unveils itself
On dating-sites really true?
Why else would I, forlorn
click and open Grindr,
Instead of returning
to my home’s quiet comfort.
For it is there that we met,
blurring all distances,
Effacing our boundaries
Suffusing and losing
Ourselves into each other
When did we call this love?
I can’t remember.

I know,
I should be thankful to you.
Grateful for rescuing me from
The doorsteps of the drug rehab,
For nurturing me when
I was low and desolate.
Much like lovers of our times
You rode me to restaurants,
Meandered with me at multiplexes
You waited for me on the sands
By treacherous shores of the sea

And then,
like is the case with Indian couples
You took charge of everything
Labelling our roles, definitively
But when, I did not fit your box
You went away, deserting me
And everything that was ours.
You, much aware of your bearings
An unfazed volatile wanderer.

First, you fell for me
Later you gave up on me
So now I believe in Alvida
But I remember us,
And when you surface on my mind,
Sadness greets me too.
For in the streets where
we once held hands and walked
I now walk alone,
with all castles that we built together
And in all shadows, I search for a figure
That takes care of me like you did
Once again on a dating site.

Also, Read Bohni, The First Earning by Chitra Mudgal, Translated from The Hindi by Anuradha Dosad and published in The Antonym:

Bohni, The First Earning— Chitra Mudgal

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About Author

DadaPeer Jyman

Dadapeer Jyman is a Kannada poet, writer, and translator based in Bangalore and a member of the Queer Poets Collective. He holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics from Karnataka University, Dharwad. His debut short story collection, “Neelakurinji,” won the 2022 National Sahitya Akademi Young Litterateur Prize for Kannada and the 2021 Masti Venkatesh Iyengar Book Prize. He also received the Rajyotsava award from Gulbarga University, where the title story is part of the BA syllabus. In 2023, he won the TOTO Award for creative writing in Kannada and has been published in leading Kannada newspapers and periodicals.

About Translator

Shashank Johri

Shashank Johri is a Bangalore based poet who writes in English. He has performed at many international poetry Festivals in India, Malaysia and Tunisia since 2017. He was felicitated at the International Thinkers and Writers Peace Meet 2022, by ISISAR at Kolkata. Shashank has been an active participant in ‘Kaavya Sanje’, a Bengaluru based multilingual poetry group since its inception. The song he wrote and co-composed, ‘Hum Hain Ugam’ for Ugam, a Mumbai based NGO of childhood cancer survivors was recorded by Shaan in 2012. In 2019, he translated a Kannada Janapada into English. He holds a Master’s degree in Design from National Institute of Design and currently works as the Founding Designer of ABOD- A bunch of designers, that aims to bring about social change through design. He was recently invited as a speaker at the Bangalore Design week. He also teaches Sustainable Design at NIFT Bengaluru.