meitei ngamu

You name everything

In the way you want

If it looks or tastes good

Whether it is fish or chilly.

When there were bamboo polls

In every gate,

And when the drains were wide

Your fish housed inside hollow bamboos

No one bothered it.

Never had it noticed the torn fishing net.

Never had it protested for being caught

And kept inside the poor lady’s ngabongkhao

Now it has come out of the muddy drain

And learn to talk loud and dig the earth.

For Maharaj Gambhir,

A flyover has been paved

Like a red carpet

Towards Kangla Gate,

By the great politicians of our time,

So that the Maharaj doesn’t find

The poor mothers

And their unsold vegetables and fishes.

The politicians house your fish

Inside their pockets and socks.

And now they look down from the flyover

To find the crest and trough

Of our economy

To pour fuel and burn it

To start all over again a new wave

To amplify further

Their lives and wives

With golds and our death.

Now your fish has been fed so much

That it grows its teeth so sharply

Its tail can wipe away the statue of Maharaj

And it did sometime back in Moirang

Now the poets have not heard

The chirping of the skylark

Since your fish turned into a Shark

And the politicians recite our history

Of the poor mothers

Who fought days and nights

Saving the lives of so many sons

While the shark get lost

In the middle of the redness

That the blood colored