My English rendition of Kannadasan’s “Veedu varai uravu”…

Till the house cometh the kin,
Till the street, the wife.
Till the cremation cometh the son.
Who cometh till the end, after life?

When he lives, he lives.
For a thousand things he yearns.
The crowd that around him thrives,
Doth it accompany him till he burns?

The mother for the cradle
And the maiden for the cot.
For the hunger, the pot and ladle.
After the blow, cometh the wise thought.

He asks the one who has gone,
To come doth he tell him to.
The one that has come doth he call upon,
And he tells him to go through.

The soul will take flight.
The body will rot to nothingness.
The fire will burn with all its might.
Still staying steadfast in wickedness.