Malayalam Poetry in English
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When the Bamboos Sing
Translated by K.C Muraleedharan
When, in the hall, drenched in qawwali,
The concertgoers, their fingers dancing,
Far off, in a hamlet,
A boy was busy
Making a bamboo flute.
Through the first hole he makes
Raag pahadi gently flows
With the red-hot compass
boring the second hole
Megh-malhar effuses.
The qawwali rains on
The listeners float on its surges
From his flute unique
Ragas rise unbidden
When he drives holes
With his dusky fingers and red-hot compass
Far-off here, in the room air-cooled
The bansuri goes dumb.
The boy’s bamboo flute
Plays bright and hard
lnto the qawwali’s infinite charms.
They in the hall writhed
As if the hot compass pricked.
The rain subsides
And the Sun rises scorching
Like the red-hot compass tip.
The hall abounds with melting ragas
The world
Starts speaking in sharp notes and nuances
Basant Mukhari overflows
Tears stream down
The hall, all rains.
On his lips
The Baul dances
Bamboos sing in chorus
Sleep
Translated by Sajai KV
Night
The road lights darkness.
You, from afar,
puts out sleep.
I make the bed
in poetry.
Still time to close
the eyes.
In the dusk of swirling sounds
Translated by Haris Yoonus
Amid the roaring cheers
I spun the DJ mixer
Created new shades of music
swinging my chair
painting fresh waves of sounds.
Filmmakers, authors and
artists ceased to listen
A few danced
running amidst
unnamed trees
drenched of pale sunlight
Leaves drooped as notes
having no address
nor direction
amongst the benches
in a terrible and vibrant enthuse…
At times, the rain became songs,
unheard ragas blooming anew
Assorted men, women and children
as old as me
yet bearing no mass of age
Drank, swayed and ate
sprouting fresh paths of colour
Eyes full of romance
Ears full of music
Words full of love
The hills afar moved closer
pulling nearby trees along
Kites hung on the clouds
hovered away
while children crafted
wide range of kites eternally
What flowed through the river,
if not me, I knew it wasn’t you either.
So close it was,
that slope untouched by darkness.
Flat winds brushed against fingers,
taking flight as new verses.
Though a cup full of silence
was poured aside,
I had no craving to be soaked within,
in this twilight
nestled between sea and the woods.
Before someone unravels
the little of me that remained,
they walked along,
each to their long path.
Sounds echoing with deep colours,
sat in tied-up chairs.
Painting scentless flowers in the
vast canvas
The circles expanding
to burn as bright as the sun
How ample are the sights
this evening nap brings..
Everything must be scraped off
Before I wake
Better than the day
is this very darkness
spinning out from the DJ mixer!
The Snow Cross of December
Translated by Dr. Jaya Anitha Abraham
In the night
The snow whispers
Your name
The village reminisces about, you
Babies drift into dreams
And smile.
You cry
Beside me, you sit
Wiping your cheeks
With a handkerchief and so on
Turning the pages
Of the new calendar
The sun-kissed children
Look for the birth sign
Of the rain.
They do not know
That the rain
Slipped away
Following you.
I kneel
Before your image
With silent prayers
Spun from long meditations
Oh, rain
Why do you not see me?
December blooms
In tiny flowers
Across the cemetery,
A crown of snow-thorns
Sits on my village’s head
Oh, Mary
Why did you weep
Behind the glass-case of snow?
When will she come again
All day long
She hurried, made the manger
Hung the stars
Soaked in the hailstorm
Of the night
She stayed awake
And teased,
That lilies bloom
In my heart
And that I carry
An olive-green shadow.
December,
Return her to me
These nights,
Let me melt like candles
Before the graveyard
Let me kneel down
Every Sunday
To pray for rain.
And at the end
When summer comes
With its poems
Let me plead: ‘Go away, go away’.
Let us cry out
To the moonlight
That we may pray
To fast the whole day
And break the fast in the evening
When we see her
December,
Return her to me.
Watching you,
The breeze hides
Among the young leaves
Of the bamboo bush.
Waiting for you
The streams cease their flow
In search of you
The plants fill the courtyard
With their buds.
December,
We deserve tears
Let me nail my palm
Against your snow.
Wandering
Translated by Achuthan Vatakketath Ravi
To write a poem
Without me and you
And Neriamangalam,
I Reached
A seashore far away
And sat on the sand spread.
The salt brims over me
And the giddiness in the woods
Turns to waves.
When sat looking at the sea
Saw the lands abroad.
There saw the people
Working in the offices and factories
Sleeping and playing-
The people with various colours
And emotions.
I wished to drink
Their laughter And fondle
The sorrows there keeping them beside.
All of them
Gathered around in-dash
Love turned up as gentle winds
And blew the wings.
The dusk on the seashore Reddened more.
Laughter and shouts
And screams
Flown up as if songs.
And those who follow them and dance
And who are more depressed,
Sat together.
As a single continent,
Seashore
With everything becomes one world.
Like a ball the Earth
Started spinning itself underfoot.
With the speed of moving the leg
Earth is rotating on its own.
It is my legs spin
The Earth moving around the sun
Ha… Again
I unnecessarily have entered the poem
Haughtily.
All of them
Might have gone
To their own spaces.
With none, the sea
Turning blue,
Started playing making ripples.
How can I avoid me,
Searching my home
Bending
On the Earth?
Placing Neriamangalam
On my lap
And nibble the poem.
(Note: Neriamangalam: Poet’s homeland)
To read more poetry by the same author, click here
About the Author
Akbar is a Malayalam poet. He has published four anthologies of poetry so far-Bamsuri (2001- DC Books), Akbarovsky (2019 – Pappathi Pusthakangal), Kuyil Oru Pakshi Maathramalla (2023 – Logos Books) and Ninnekkurichulla Kavithakal (2025 – Logos Books). He has received numerous awards including Samskara Sahiti Award-2007, Sahitya Award of National Organization for Social Empowerment-2014, International Excellence Award by Excellence Books-2024, and Bharat Sevak Samaj National Award for Literature-2024.
About the Translators
K C Muraleedharan worked as an Associate Professor of English at Kannur University. He has translated several poems from Malayalam into English. He co-edited with E V Ramakrishnan the book O V Vijayan: The Critical Insider, a Routledge, London publication, 2025.
A native of Alappuzha, Haris Yoonus has been working in Dubai for the past 20 years. He has published three Malayalam poetry collections: Puzhavith, Kadal Oru Galaxy and Veyil way station, which were released at the Sharjah International Book Fair in 2021, 2022. & 2024 respectively. He regularly writes for periodicals, online magazines, and new media platforms.
Jaya Anitha Abraham works as an academic at Abu Dhabi University since 2011. She is also a Fellow of the Academy of Higher Education. Her published works include When the Walls Have Ears, the translation of the Malayalam novel Nilachoru by Shabu Kilithattil. She writes poetry in Malayalam and English and translates literary works from Malayalam into English. In her poems, her inner self merges with nature and the world around her.
Achuthan Vatakketath Ravi is a poet, writer and literary critic. He entered the world of poetry in 1975 with the translation of Khalil Gibran’s ‘Countryman.’ His first published story was the translation of ‘Wanka’ by Anton Chekhov, in the children’s magazine ‘Thatthmma’. He has also published translations of Pashtun poetry and Russian poetry in ‘Malayalantu’ and ‘Navamalayali’ (Online Magazines) respectively.
Sajay K. V is a renowned literary critic in Malayalam, regularly contributing insightful columns to prominent magazines. His critical essays have received wide acclaim in the Malayalam literary circles. He has also authored books that deal with contemporary issues.
