A black and white Vayalar song

Someone, estranged and sad
Is walking alone..
Everyone in the world
Has a love somewhere
Whose heart
In his memory, beats fast,
As she has nothing else to do..

He is singing
In a  black and white song
Neither wholly black nor wholly white
Declaring that
all the sorrows of the world are his
he is walking along the riverside.
We have deep sympathy for him

At that moment, the river is not just a river
It has life, emotions
(and so many other things)
It stretches tight
And breaks apart
I have seen it, you too
Reminding us that
We too have a heart
Not through its beats, but pain
Silently beating its head on the soul
That it is going to melt away ..

While listening to the song that day too
He was walking
Today too, while listening,
He is walking along the same riverbank
He will walk again
His legs will never tire
Because sorrows are that strong
He and she
In their black and white village
Will go on singing
Even if the world comes to an end

I will let myself
That he is not he
But me
When I hear this song again
I will remember that
My cacophonic life
Is oblivious that
For ages I have been walking
Along such a river bank

Howmanysoever lives one has?
But to live all that
There is only one me!
So, I run away, whole,
To the black and white song.
Wherever I am now, I am not there..

Translation: C.S Venkiteswaran