Taranand Viyogi
With great enthusiasm
my mother understandably gave me birth!
So much of preparation
so many hopes and ambitions
might have surrounded her from all sides
in those nine months
when I was in her womb.
In a period like that
all mothers
who were pregnant
would have been a silent competition
with eighty-four hundred thousand other species
Slashing herself time and again
and moulding me smooth and graceful
she could have given me the final shape.
She would have offered unique inheritance
in her creation of me
and would have participated in the competition.
How can I agree
that my mother died
and snapped her association with me?
As long as I live
how can she leave me alone?
Translated from Maithili by Ayodhyanath Choudhary