POEM FROM TAMIL LITERATURE - “THE BEST JOURNEY TAKES YOU HOME” (54)

ABOUT THE POEM: This is a translated version of an overwhelmingly impressive poem from Tamil literature“The best journey takes you home”.It is about what the husband said to his friend on the successful completion of his mission. He fondly recalls the anxiety of his wife after hearing the news of his coming back home after accomplishing his task. In the course of the poem, his imagination runs riot and he says that she will tell her friend the speed with which he will travel back home in his chariot and the way it rattles the deer in the vicinity. The poem is elegant and exquisite in its exposition that the best journey takes you home and brings home the fact that East or West Home is Best. “THE BEST JOURNEY TAKES YOU HOME” Come on rider, let the horses gallop to arrive home before it is dark My pretty spouse pitiable though, Keep on guard for my arrival with an inkling clasping her shimmering bracelets to keep them from jingling living in our magnificent manor languishing and looking down the lane deeply distressed  in her heart, She will  be telling  her friend, My dear spouse directing his chariot the rider controlling the reins, the horses fast like the wind, dashing gasping hot air grunting like the howls in a blacksmith’s furnace with froth on their mouths like the foam on churned milk, its little beads dissipating like spider web strings some of them smudging his chest covered with sandalwood paste the chariot passing through the tranquil land refreshed by cool air Sports a look of grandeur, fleet-footed deer escaping in dread of the shattering wheels with spiraling spokes scuttling through the sand with an air of commotion, resembling the sound of the grindstone when the mistress of the house, mashes dried rice headlong, he will arrive home before long. (what the husband said to his friend on the successful completion of his mission )