Love
By Phan Thi Thanh Nhan
Translated by Tho Phan Thi Thanh Nhan
Explicated by Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay
You have another girlfriend
She is more beautiful and younger than me
She is also coddled and fondled
Like you used to treat me as ever
I could not understand although thinking for a long time
My unreasonable faithfulness
Why I cannot love anyone not you
But you spit on our past
And you forgot all of our bitterness and miserableness
Why I am still thinking about our old days
And think that you never change
I am still waiting for you
And thinking that you cannot forget me
Although she is more beautiful and younger than me
You released me but still there a new wound
Explicated by Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyay
You have another girlfriend
She is more beautiful and younger than me
She is also coddled and fondled
Like you used to treat me as ever
I could not understand although thinking for a long time
My unreasonable faithfulness
Why I cannot love anyone not you
But you spit on our past
And you forgot all of our bitterness and miserableness
Why I am still thinking about our old days
And think that you never change
I am still waiting for you
And thinking that you cannot forget me
Although she is more beautiful and younger than me
You released me but still there a new wound
Change is the category of life. Impermanence is the only truth lurking behind the show of things. And yet emotions such as love can not admit of the reality that it is change which characterizes the way of the world. The poem ‘Love’ by Phan Thi Thanh Nhan is a sweet ditty where a deserted lover casts a longing lingering look into her past. She still thinks about her past when she was cuddled and fondled by her sweetheart. She thinks that her sweet heart has not changed even today despite the fact that her sweetheart at this moment is engaged with a girl who is more beautiful and younger than her. The deserted lover says that she is still waiting for her beloved to turn up. True that she has been deserted by her sweetheart but the wounds of love still linger at her heart and the deserted lover thinks that her beloved one has also love for her at his heart even today despite the fact that he coddles and fondles a girl younger and more beautiful than her. The speaker, that is, the deserted lover tries to understand why she is still fond of the man who deserted her. It seems to her that there is an unreasonable faithfulness in her. That is why she cannot love anyone else than the person whom she loved once and whom she lost in course of time. Thus the poem enshrines constancy of love. Love does not admit of any change. The emotion of love baffles explanation.
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