The Laws of Twenty-one

This Bengali nonsense poem by the great Sukumar Ray talks about the strange laws in the imagined country of Lord Shiva. Such laws may or may not resemble real laws in real countries. The laws relate to the number 21 various ways.

Today being the 21st of February, the International Mother Language Day, AND Maha Shivaratri, the annual worship day of Lord Shiva, I couldn't resist the temptation to translate this poem to English from my mother language today.

In the land where Lord Shiva stays,
Terrible laws one must obey!
If someone happens to slip and fall,
A policeman will arrest and haul
To the court, and the judge opines,
He pays twenty-one rupees in fines.

There, before it's evening six
For sneezing you need permits.
Without permit, if a sneeze will come,
Bang! Boom! On your back they drum,
A dose of snuff the Chief applies,
Until you sneeze twenty-one times.

A loose tooth, if someone has,
They must pay four rupees as tax.
If whiskers grow on someone's face,
A hundred annas is their cess.
Poking his back, bending his neck,
Twenty-one salutes they have him make.

While walking, if someone chance
To cast left or right, a sideways glance,
At once to the king this news will rush,
The soldiers all jump and make a fuss,
They make him drink, in the sun at noon,
Water in twenty-one serving spoons.

With poetry, those who fill the pages,
They are caught, and put in cages,
And made to listen, in tunes variable,
Recitations of the multiplication table.
They have to read grocery-store ledgers,
And do additions for twenty-one pages.

If suddenly when the night is deep,
Someone snores while they're in sleep.
On their head they rub with glee,
Cow-dung mixed with apple puree,
Twenty-one times they are spun
And hung for hours twenty-one.

(Translated by Sugata Banerji)