K. VIJAYALAKSHMI
Shall I with my finger nails
tear your soft cheeks?
Do it it’s My bliss.
the wounds and pains will
lead me on.
Shall I with my myriad hands
slam your eye gates left and
right?
Try it - but what need
the fleshy eyes.
To one who looks on
the beauty and the world
with mind’s eye?
Shall I shaut your ruby
lips
that they tremble?
Ah, you see,
I know it is easy
But vain talk is not valour.
If I bind your
hands with ropes strong?
Well, well – do it,
So long true freedom is a
myth
Your chains but add
One
more to the many.
What it I break your fingers
Stifling your high Song
even before birth?
No, you can’t - my nerves
will rise and write,
If not
in ink, in red blood.
If by chance they are Strangled,
and red drops gushed out
I will bend my self slowly down
and - Oh Time!
On your broad forehead I will smear it a Tilak.*
The radiant red Tilak
may perhaps leave you
folding your hands in worship.
To accept or refuse
is a choice yours If I lose
my confidence.
“An ornamental smearing
of rep powder made as a round dot on the forehead of Hindu women which is often
associated with the divine in the human.
(Translated from Tamil By
“Bala.”)
A nation cannot progress
if it merely imitates its ancestors; what builds a nation is Creative inventive
and vital activity
Speech, Sangor, 30 October 1952