Sunday, April 26, 2020

Every town our home town



Every town our home town
Kaniyan Poongunranar [Sangam Period, 3rd century BC to 4th century AD]

​​"Every town our home town
every man, a kinsman
Good and evil do not come from others
Pain and relief of pain come of themselves

Dying is nothing new
We do not rejoice that life is sweet
nor in anger​​
call it bitter

Our lives, however dear,
follow their own course,
rafts drifting
in the rapids of a great river
sounding and dashing over rocks
after a downpour
from skies slashed by lightnings -

We know this from the vision
of men who see,
So,
We are not amazed by the great
and we do not scorn the little."

Translated by A K Ramanujan: "Poems of Love and War: From the Eight
Anthologies and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil"

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