August-September 2007 
Year 14    No.125
Voices

14 Anniversary Issue


No Entry for the New Sun

Dalit poetry in India

No Entry for the New Sun

By Vilas Rashinkar

 

With determination they set

the stamp of approval

on their own garrulous tongue

so it becomes easy

to collect a hundred tongues

and spit on the sun.

They prop up crumbled bastions

in ten places

with the twigs of history.

They unwrap the scriptures

from their protective covers

and insist –

‘These are commandments

engraved on stone.’

From pitch-back tunnels

they gather ashes

floating on jet-black water

and reconstruct the skeletons

of their ancestors,

singing hymns

of their thoughts

worn to shreds.

There is no entry here

for the new sun.

This is the empire

of ancestor-worship,

of blackened castoffs,

of darkness.

 

(Translated by Priya Adarkar)

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Exhalation

By Narendra Patil

 

‘Merely an exhalation’

Circumstances

have slapped down a suit

on the burning thoughts

in my mind!

They’ve put all burning minds

In custody.

Incarcerated

all gardens of dreams.

But how long can this bird

remain in this dungeon

whose very walls tremble

with his every exhalation?

 

(Translated by Shanta Gokhale)

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To Dear Aana

By Suresh Kadam

 

The sunset does not bury our sorrows,

nor does sunrise bring new hopes.

Everything continues, relentlessly.

Society, bound by her rituals of ages,

chews up chunks of human flesh

in blind fury:

the horse she rides

bleeds and foams at the mouth:

she holds the reins

of an ancient system;

her predator’s ears

listen for the twittering of birds;

in the orthodoxy of her world

passion and intensity are ridiculed.

Therefore, dear Aana,

you ought not to have cherished expectations

of a lingering kiss in the long night.

 

(Translated by Vilas Sarang)

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Habit

By FM Shinde

 

Once you’re used to it

you never afterwards

feel anything;

your blood nevermore

congeals

nor flows

for wet mud has been slapped

over all your bones.

Once you’re used to it

even the sorrow

that visits you

sometimes, in dreams,

melts away, embarrassed.

Habit isn’t used to breaking out

in feelings.

 

(Translated by Priya Adarkar)

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This Country is Broken

By Bapurao Jagtap

 

This country is broken into a thousand pieces;

its cities, its religion, its castes,

its people, and even the minds of the people

– all are broken, fragmented.

In this country, each day burns

scorching each moment of our lives.

We bear it all, and stand solid as hills

in this our life

that we do not accept.

Brother, our screams are only an attempt

to write the chronicle of this country

– this naked country

with its heartless religion.

The people here rejoice in their black laws

and deny that we were ever born.

Let us go to some country, brother,

Where, while you live, you will have

a roof above your head,

and where, when you die, there will at least be

a cemetery to receive you.

 

(Translated by Vilas Sarang)

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Light Melted in Darkness

By Meena Gajabhiye

 

Day slants, narrows down

And then I melt

in the empty space of darkness.

Though I am severed in two

no one cares.

Their leafless bough

never blossoms!

Although they strike root

seeped in my blood

I am entangled in python-coils

for ages.

Their venomous hiss

turns my day into night.

And when I reach out for a sunray

it recedes far away

like the end of a dream

when the eyelid is opened.

 

(Translated by Charudatta Bhagwat)

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How?

By Bhau Panchbhai

 

How do we taste milk in this town

where trees are planted of venom?

Enemies invite nothing but enmity

How can we share a drink of friendship?

How can I know this town as my own

where workmen are slaughtered daily?

How do I burn to light the path

at this turn

where hutments are set on fire?

They all partake of fruits of faithlessness

How am I to join such company?

Change your cradle if you would

How do I twist the shape of a newborn babe?

I see the clash of prisoners

Trained in schools of warfare

They die, how am I to survive here?

 

(Translated by Charudatta Bhagwat)

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White Paper

By Sharankumar Limbale

 

I do not ask

for the sun and moon your sky

your farm, your land,

your high houses or your mansions

I do not ask for gods or rituals,

castes or sects

Or even for your mother, sisters, daughters

I ask for

my rights as a man.

Each breath from my lungs

sets off a violent trembling

in your texts and traditions

your hells and heavens

fearing pollution.

Your arms leapt together

To bring to ruin our dwelling places.

You’ll beat me, break me,

loot and burn my habitation

But my friends!

How will you tear down my words

planted like a sun in the east?

My rights: contagious caste riots

festering city by city, village by village,

man by man

For that’s what my rights are –

Sealed off, outcast, road-blocked, exiled.

I want my rights, give me my rights.

Will you deny this incendiary state of things?

I’ll uproot the scriptures like railway tracks.

Burn like a city bus your lawless laws

My friends!

My rights are rising like the sun.

Will you deny this sunrise?

 

(Translated by Priya Adarkar)

 

 

 

 

 

(Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature, Arjun Dangle (Ed.), Orient Longman Limited, 1992.)


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