Balachandran V's poem is written as a set of instructions for felling bamboo, but the cold, practical voice keeps cracking. The speaker first tells us how to cut, then fills the grove with life: warblers, doves, basking lizards, an old cobra that has shed its last skin. The bamboo itself seems to listen and smile. Everything the cutter is told to ignore is exactly what the poem makes us see.
The orders turn harder as it goes. Don't let the stem split, don't listen to its groans, and lay the poles down like fallen soldiers. The repeated "Forget" lines read like someone trying to convince himself. The "Ra Ra" lines suggest the grove's creaking song, now reduced to a murmur that fades. The ending is the most telling: walk away and don't look back, or you will see the severed bamboo hearts, or your own heart left bleeding. The mood is mournful and quietly guilty, with grief sitting underneath the calm.