jit narain

Working all day, dreaming at night

Working all day, dreaming at night –
Aja’s appearance is something like mine.

My ship was not called Lalla Rookh
and my country’s name became Holland, meneer.

I flew KLM, I left Surinam.
When the memory of you arose,
I went in search of history.

The sap of this story is not sacred nectar,
the feeling it gives holds my mind in its grip.

Why he left India, that I can fathom;
that India never left him, is the burden I bear.

trans by paul vincent