K. JAYAKUMAR
Malayali Poet, Translator, Lyricist and Script Writer,
Senior Bureaucrat in the Government of India.
With equally eminent profiles as an I.A.S. Officer as well as a distinguished Poet and Lyricist, Jayakumar has straddled both spheres with élan.
His creative oeuvre encompasses:
3 published anthologies of Malayali poems; the first published book on Tourism in Malayalam; Malayali translations of Tagore’s ‘Gitanjali’, Kahlil Gibran’s ‘Prophet and Jesus, the Son of Man’.
He has penned lyrics for over 80 Malayalam films, scripted two mega serials and over a dozen TV and film documentaries and also written and directed a children’s film ‘Varnachrakukal’ in Malayalam.
Scripted an English film shot in kyrgyzstan (Mama is waiting)
Wrote and directed a children’s film(Varnachrakukal) in Malyalam
After the stormThe landscape is now
a fainted demon.
The frenzy,
a wild memory
punctuated by uprooted trees.
Duels and betrayals
are swirling leaves.
Gruesome graffiti
and chilling omens are splashed
on the patchy walls of memory.
My roads are strewn
with shards of forsaken dreams.
My valleys are smothered
by the fog of guilt and fears.
My desires are scattered
as swarms of torched beetles.
Chained to the rock of helplessness
mind moves in tragic circles
like an abandoned animal.
I am vengefully in love
with my loveless existence
and its sad finiteness.
I tamed falcons
in sparrows’ cages.
Here I always followed
my ugly shadow in fright.
The storm was
a cloudburst of misfortunes
and a whirl of miseries.
My gifts of love were returned
as accursed totems.
My words and silences
were misquoted
and my tears and wishes misread.
In the abacus of a bruised fate,
treachery moved the beads
in sardonic victory.
In their conspiracy of hatred
I was a minotaur and a vampire.
Perhaps
in the act of forgiveness
my wounds could heal.
In the torrent of a new light
I could glimpse
a new sky of beauty.
But how do I ever forget
the war heat
that shrivelled my heart?
How do I transcend
these trenches and fences?
How do I outgrow
these hedged and narrow roads?
Can the stillness
of this chastised moment
ever make this restless flame
cease to flicker?
After the storm
The sky is an eye.
In the after-rain-freshness,
familiar sights are awash
in a new delight.
Though in twilight,
beyond the silhouetted foliage,
is it the promise
of a serene moonscape?
If only love would course
in the vessels of my being,
I could melt and flow out;
or transform into a sparrow
and wing skyward.