Good-By

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

" An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth " - Bonnie Friedman, author

Salma

Introducing Salma.Kindly excuse if you already know this forty plus year old Muslim Tamil poetess and activist. I came across her through the pages of last weeks Literary Magazine of The Hindu. There were two things about her that caught my attention and forced me to Google about her the next day in office . Firstly, pure and raw talent that has no background to boast of and secondly the topics of her literary work. Born to an orthodox Muslim family she was forced to drop out of school in ninth standard since her family considered that good girls would not go to school after a certain age. Married to a still more orthodox family she was forced to write in anonymity under her pen name Salma.But she was determined to give vent to her feelings in writings and refused to be subjugated. Her poems and novels dealt with women in general and muslim women in particular.

More about her at : http://india.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=8126

Below is the translation of one of her poems :

LAKE
Its face dark from pining,
The lake lies placid and still

A few days ago,
Without a moment’s pause,
You had flungYour empty chalices;
andThe lake took them in
Without protest
Another day,
You rinsed your ashtray,
Draining the ash in its waters

Even yesterday,
Scorning our love
Gone sour, you had spat
Furiously on the water

At all odd hours — heedless
Of the time of day —
You had dumped your waste
And cleansed yourself

Today, recalling
None of this, you prepare
To slake your endless thirst
This is no river to carry away
Your effluents in its flow,
But a lake — placid and still

Water, gathered
In a stagnant pool,
Hoards all, losing nothing

...

" Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory "
- Albert Schweitzer