SACHIN KETKAR (India)
Sachin Ketkar is a multi-lingual Writer, Translator and Critic. He writes poetry in Marathi. Has translated fiction and poetry from Gujarati and Marathi into English. Contributing Editor of New Quest, a journal for participatory cultural enquiry, holds a Doctorate in Translation Studies, and is Reader in the Department of English, University of Baroda.

The Fragrance Your Body Would Give

‘I’m remembering
The fragrance of ‘Pond’s Dream flower’ your body would give
And your e-mails
I’m remembering
Our intimacy
In the cacophony at Marine Drive
How we would go on talking without tiring
Can’t recall any subjects we talked about though
Then sometimes
We would share a cigarette

I who had never seen the inside of a disco
Haven’t yet visited one
Postponing my visit so far

Later you gave up smoking
Gave up drinking as well
And we gave up
The intimacy at Marine Drive

We continued to cling to each other
within four walls
Now as though we were caught in a wheel
We have no time to talk to each other
We sit reading the newspaper
Sometimes we have tea together
And if we ever talk
It’s about our child and our home
Or else about when we would return home
Making a phone call in the afternoon we ask
Each other
‘How are you?’
And nowadays, instead of the fragrance of ‘Pond’s Dream flower’
At night your body gives
The desired-undesired odour of tired sweat

Translated by Dilip Chitre

Inside Outside

I got up