Poems of Aduri Satyavathi Devi
Poem-31
A Corf of Chalk
Telugu Original: Aduri Satyavathi Devi
English Translation: NS Murthy
Caught in the chilly web of sagittal month
Time shivers in the bitter biting cold.
Even in the congested cities
The fore yards of houses take a head-bath
And get cleansed of their inured dirt.
And before dawn,
In chalky designs get adorned
As if milky ways were spread out,
A swarm of swans were floating away,
They seem a queen’s entourage
Has been sojourning in the floral palanquin.
There, in that remote corner of the village,
A left over place after the city hadengulfed
Every inch in its reach,
On that half-quarried hillock
A hunchbacked old hag, looking like the hackneyed moon,
Sapped of all energies,
Labours in the pit in front
Herself…becoming a fistful of hunger.
She anneals the bones bitten by cold
With the rays of sun,
And becomes a machine to grind the hill to dust.
Filling up her basket with her labour
And bearing her life support overhead,
She marches past the six-bus-stops-distance for three hours
Measuring distances in her accustomed way
Of the amount of sweat she perspires.
Trading off her appetite with the city dwellers
For a hunk of bread and few droplets of tea
She satiates her hunger.
Positing the change in the navel,
She retires to her nap under a wayside tree
Or some shade under the sun.
Reminiscing her experiences, as ripe as her chalky head,
Between those half-asleep eyelids, she shivers all of a sudden
Fearing her fate if the city were to snatch
Even those remains of the hillock.
When it happens, won’t the foreyards of houses pale away
Devoid of the chalky designs
Like a queen divested of their decorations?
*****
Telugu Original :‘Muggu Butta’
Aduri Satyavathi Devi was born in Guntur in the year 1948 and settled in Visakhapatnam after marriage in 1969. She began her literary career as a lyricist at the age of 13. She wrote a variety of lyrics numbering about 300 — light, classical, devotional, patriotic, children’s and others. More than 50 songs of Satyavati Devi were broadcast over All India Radio. Eventually she made forays into various other literary genres like Poetry, Short story, Essay, Radio Play, Musical Feature, Books, Film reviews, Forewords etc..She created a substantial corpus of poetry with more than 180 poems included in 4 anthologies of poetry. She received accolades from readers, scholars, critics and litterateurs for her sensitive rendering of poems. She participated in many Poetry Meets, Festivals conducted by All India Radio, Doordarshan and the Sahitya Akademi. She was widely translated into English and Hindi. Some of the translations appeared in renowned journals like Indian Literature (English), and Samakaaleen Bharateeya Saahitya (Hindi).
She published her first volume of lyrics Vennello Venugaanam in 1988. Her first volume of poetry Rekkamudavani Raagam was published in 1992 followed by Jalapaata Geetam in 1997 and Veyirangula Velugu Raagam in 2006. Hindi translation of Rekkamudavani Raagam came out in 2008 as “Pankh an Modnevaalaa Raag” and a miscellany of various facets of her literary endeavour Vennela Paarijaataalu was published posthumously in Dec 2008. She received many prizes and awards for her literary pursuits and accomplishments like STVD Kalasamithi Award for Rekkamudavani Raagam in 1993, and Telugu University’s “Pratibha Puraskaram” as “Best Poet” in 1994, “Krishna Sastry Award” from Andhra Lalita Kala Samithi (Secunderabad) in 1998, UNESCO Literary Award in 2000, and “Ramavruksha Benipuri Janma Sataabdi Sammaan” from Jaimuni Academy (Panipat) in 2002. An English translation of her poem, “Veyirekkala Pavuram” (Myriad Winged Bird) has been included in the syllabus of English texts in the poetry section of Degree year students by the Common Core syllabus Committee in AP from 2008.