Children and the Ghost

K. Padmakumar *

I seated myself lost in thought
And musing on life and death.
A tiny human scene
Came into view.
Two little boys, stark naked
Were playing all to themselves
At one corner of the courtyard,
A woman was sitting nearby
And the place was lit by a lantern.
The new moon of Thawan drew near;
It was pitch dark
And all were soaked to the skin.
The little boy with a shaven head
Rushed off towards the gate.
'You tiny tot,' the woman cried,
'Hey, come and look what's there!
Ghost! Ghost!
Aren't you afraid of the ghost?'
One last look beyond the gate
The little boy turned and came running,
And jumped into the woman;
He sat on her lap
Hiding his face and almost breathless,
His eyes were wild with terror.
The other one tucked himself up
Under the woman's arm.
I can see both of them were
Frightened to death.
They dared not look towards the gate,
They looked as if
Somebody would just barge in on to them.
They started to look for the safety of the home;
And were crying uncontrollably for their mother.
I couldn't help but get involved
In their grief
Caught in a tangled web of fears.
Nobody has seen a ghost
It's nothing but a word not connected with the thing;
A disfigured image
Is the creation of a diseased mind.
They also haven't seen anything,
They don't know and I don't either
What a ghost is.
It is another matter if they exist or not
But the fear of them is a reality.
I begin to think I am also a child,
It takes fright
And there's no rhyme or reason to it;
Death – what is it after all?

(Translated from his late father's Manipuri poem Angangmachashing amasung Bhoot by K. Radhakumar.
Thawan – Manipuri month after the rainy season but before the onset of the autumn )