vangapandu's 'yem pillado'

found the movie ardharatri swatantryam on you tube and chopped vangapandu's song from it. t. krishna doesn't look a very convincing vangapandu.

watch it here. 

part 2 of interview in 'prairie schooner'

Q. What are the sources that the poets are drawing from currently? Is there a conscious rejection of mainstream rendering of texts, especially the traditional epics, etc.? If so, how? 

A. I am reminded of something Dr Ambedkar had said in his book, “Untouchables or The Children of India's Ghetto.” Let me quote:

"It is usual to hear all those who feel moved by the deplorable condition of the Untouchables unburden themselves by uttering the cry "We must do something for the Untouchables." One seldom hears any of the persons interested in the problem saying “Let us do something to change the Touchable Hindu .” It is invariably assumed that the object to be reclaimed is the Untouchables. If there is to be a Mission, it must be to the Untouchables and if the Untouchables can be cured, untouchability will vanish. Nothing requires to be done to the Touchable. He is sound in mind, manners and morals. He is whole; there is nothing wrong with him. Is this assumption correct? Whether correct or not, the Hindus like to cling to it. The assumption has the supreme merit of satisfying themselves that they are not responsible for the problem of the Untouchables. How natural is such an attitude is illustrated by the attitude of the Gentile towards the Jews. Like the Hindus the Gentiles also do not admit that the Jewish problem is in essence a Gentile problem." 

When the Dalit speaks of democratizing Indian society, the “Touchable Hindu” talks of nationalism; when she speaks of equality and the spread of education and opportunities, the Hindu posits it against merit; when she talks of rights and justice, he dismisses it as identity politics; when she argues for diversity and inclusiveness, he pays it lip service and dreams of Hindu supremacy in the region and a spot in the elite club of world powers.

The “Touchable Hindu” still remains utterly clueless about the Hindu problem. He is the one who is consciously rejecting the Dalit discourse all the time.

Whereas the conscious Dalit now attempts to speak of all—from the Shudras to Adivasis to Muslims and other religious minorities to women to the disabled to the sexual minorities – and does it by actually going on the streets to demonstrate, build solidarity, produce advocacy literature and wrangle with political society, the Touchable Hindu becomes ever more self-absorbed, obdurate and privilege-focused.

So the sources are diverse: lived experience, the wada and the world. Pain, deprivation, humiliation, inequality, oppression, festivity, faith, protest, celebration, battles, revolution, pogroms, love, nature, labour, hopes, genocides, lynching, victories and losses from the wada, the village and the world. As Sikhamani expresses it very lucidly in his poem, “Seashell:”

Though you've separated
My ocean from me
I've assimilated the whole ocean in myself.
Whatever inference
You may draw from that roar,
I speak that language. 

Listen to the Dalit segregated from his fellow men, the poet seems to be saying: “you can listen to the infinite roars of the ocean,” just as you do when you hold the seashell, separated from the ocean, close to your ear, and listen “with patience.”

When you listen to her, you’ll also hear the roaring pain of history, as in the words of Kalekuri Prasad:

I was Shambhuka in the Treta Yuga 

Twenty two years ago, my name was Kanchikacherla Kotesu 

My place of birth is Kilvenmani, Karamchedu, Neerukonda 

Now Chunduru is the name that cold-blooded feudal brutality 

Has tattooed on my heart with ploughshares 

From now on, Chunduru is not a noun but a pronoun 

Now every heart is a Chunduru, a burning tumour; 

I am the wound of multitudes, the multitude of wounds: 

For generations, an unfree individual in a free country 

Having been the target 

Of humiliations, atrocities, rapes and torture 

I am someone raising his head for a fistful of self-respect. 

In this nation of casteist bigots blinded by wealth 

I am someone who lives to register life itself as a protest  

I am someone who dies repeatedly to live 

Don't call me a victim 

I am an immortal, I am an immortal, I am an immortal 

~ ~ ~

please read the rest of the interview here.

interview in 'prairie schooner'

nabina das interviews me for 'prairie schooner', lit magazine:

~ ~ ~

Q. Imagining that the larger community has little or no idea of "Dalit Literature," tell us something about it.

A. It’s not very difficult to imagine that the larger community has little or no idea of "Dalit Literature." That tells us something about it; that the literature of the former ‘untouchables’ should largely remain untouchable even now, when it is available in such profusion, tells us how desperately the world wants to stand still and hold its breath so that it will go away.

Does this larger community figure in Dalit writing? 

The larger community is never absent in the Dalit writer’s imagination. The whole world throbs like a bad tumor in her imagination.

When Yendluri Sudhakar takes a walk in Chicago, he hears Martin Luther King:

When I walk in Chicago
The roar of Martin Luther King's
Word flames
Rings constantly in my ears
Like a chant!

K. G. Satyamurthy ('Sivasagar’) faces death in Jaffna:

Jaffna! Jaffna!! O Jaffna!!
When the night was flying as a vulture
You blew up as a landmine
I died without realizing it
I died in Jaffna.

He is imprisoned in South Africa with Nelson Mandela:

So many prisons
But only one life

He is singing in Tiananmen Square:

The tear drop that splits
On the edge of dark night’s sword:
In the clasp of the gallows
The song that shall wake the sun!

Writes a love letter to Saddam Hussein:

The river Tigris
The Kurdistan hills
The Baghdad streets
The Iraqi grains of sand,
I love Your love for them.

 And he grieves for Santiago:

Santiago! Santiago!
What treachery stabbed you in the back?
What treachery made you stand unarmed before your enemy?
What treachery deprived you of your people’s army?

We can then say that the Dalit poet has a global scope in her work?

The Dalit poet breathes the pain of the wretched and the marginalized in Chicago, Jaffna, Santiago, South Africa, Baghdad and Tiananmen Square as naturally as she inhales the daily treachery, repression, rebellion, seclusion, and defiance of the Dalitwada. Dalitwada is the Dalit settlement outside the village which is always so planned that it can taste even the wind only after it has passed through the village first. The wada which deserves only the leftovers, the remnants, the dregs of everything, including air: who would understand the need for community better?

Who would understand the need for peace and solidarity better than someone who has been engaged in an endless, unequal war she never sought? A war so unequal that generation after generation has to depend solely, and paradoxically, on the enemy itself to sustain its continued participation? Therefore, the wars and unrealized deaths in Jaffna or Santiago or Baghdad or Afghanistan or the Congo or anywhere and everywhere else aren’t unfamiliar to the Dalits in even the most remote, totally-shut-off-from-the-world wadas in India.

Because, as Sivasagar says:

Listen! Listen to the untouchable word:
Between the village and the wada
There's a Kargil,
From grandfathers' forefathers' age,
Burning between us;
This Kargil war
Hasn't stopped, it goes on.

The war between the caste village and the caste-less wada is the oldest conflict in the world. But the world still flickers in the Dalit poet’s heart more brightly than any lamp lit across the world in memory of dead soldiers.

Pydi Theresh Babu mourns the slow death of a world being consumed by globalization:

Nothing is overtly visible
You can’t hear my breath
In my song
You can’t hear my music
In my procession
You can’t see my play
In my street
You can’t see my ware
In my bazaar

Paradoxes. Contradictions. Why should a Dalit in the wada, who should be happy to be free of the village, embrace the whole world, in such unfettered love?

How do you see these contradictions being resolved? 

As Satish Chandar sees it, the Dalit is a revolutionary staking claim over her body, land, spirit and humanity:

My land's not mine, they said,
I became a revolutionary
My body's not mine, they said,
I became a feminist
My village is not mine, they said,
I became a Dalit

She wants a whole new world, nothing less:

Finally,
I am not even human, they said,
Step away
I've become a human bomb.

~ ~ ~

please read the rest of the interview here. 

అనర్థ శాస్త్రం

పైసాలో
పదోవంతు
పదిలో ఐదుగురికి
పంచితే
వాళ్ళిళ్ళళ్ళో పస్తులు
పొలాల్లో ఆత్మహత్యలే
పండుతాయి

ఇద్దరే
యేడుపాళ్ళు
యేడురోజులూ తింటే
మిగతా ముగ్గురికి
వారానికి మూడు రోజులు
రెండు పూటలూ
యేడుపే

పైసాలో
ఇంత భారతముంటే
పార్లమెంటు
యిద్దరి సుఖం కోసం
పరిచిన పరుపే
అవుతుంది
పంచాయితీ పెట్టండి!

అవతార పురుషుడు

బాబు భజ్రంగి
పటేల్మని
కులం దాటిన ప్రేమికుల్ని

కడుపు దాటని పాపల్ని
పరశురాముడో
పరమ కంసుడో
అవతారమెత్తి
పొట్టన పెట్టుకున్నాడు
నికృష్ణుడు

పదిమందిలోనే
యీ పదేళ్ళూ
పటేలై
పంచాయితీలు
పెద్దరికాలు నెరిపాడు
దాక్కుని అణగదొక్కుకొని
నక్కి నక్కి
కలుగుళ్ళో క్యాంపుళ్ళో
కారాగార కర్మనుభవించింది
వాడి కల్కవతారానికందని మనమే

గోవుకీ గోధ్రాకీ
పుట్టినోడు కాదు
మతంలోనే మందిలోనే
గోవర్ధనగిరికి ముందు
కులానికి గోత్రానికి
పొట్ట చీల్చి పుట్టి
భూమిపై పగబట్టి
వామనుడై
కాంతిని విడగొట్టి
నిచ్చెన మెట్లకి వురేసి
వివర్ణం నిండిన తలల్ని
పటేలని వణికిపోయే మనల్ని
సరైన పాతాళంలోకే
తొక్కేస్తున్నాడు. 

mEmavudaam

wrote some mad verse in telugu:

నీకూ నాకూ
మధ్య అడ్డుగోడై
ప్రేమా దోమా
యేదైనా వుంటే
కూల్చేద్దాం!
మనం మేమవుదాం
చేతనైనంత వెలమవుదాం
వాడికి మేతవుదాం
దేవ్డిల వెట్టవుదాం
రెచ్చిపోయి రెడ్డవదాం
అదందాం ఇదందాం
అదవదాం ఇదవదాం
అడ్డంగా నరికేద్దాం
యెవడూ దొరక్క పోతే
పోనీ పోతే
యీ ఫోరడి ప్రాణం
యింకో పోరడి ప్రాణం
ఆత్మహత్యై
ఊదుబత్తై
ఉద్యమ పద్దై
గల్లా యెగిరేసుకొని
చెప్పుకొనే గొప్పై
నీ గుడిసెల నిప్పై
వాడి భవన్లో నోట్ల కుప్పై
నోటికొచ్చిన తత్వమై

అమ్మ కడుపును తన్నిన
అయోమయమై
నిన్ను చంపిన వాడి
అమరత్వమై...

అమరత్వం ఆధ్యాత్మ్యం
అల్లమెల్లిగడ్డ
వాడవసరం
మన ధర్మం..
అంతా యెనకట్లాగనె
సనాతనంగా
తలొంచుకుని పాటిద్దాం
మెడలిద్దాం యేళ్ళిద్దాం
పాలిద్దాం చేళ్ళిద్దాం
వాడింట్ల కాకి
పక్కోడు కొడితే
మనం గాయపడదాం
వాళ్ళిద్దరి నదులు వాళ్ళకు
పంచుకుందాం
మన నోట్ల మట్టంతా మనదే కదా?
పెంచుకుందాం..
వంచుకుందాం
వాళ్ళిద్దరి పగలూ
పోటీలూ
మన కుండళ్ళోకి
గొంతుళ్ళోకి గుండెళ్ళోకి
బేగాని షాదిల..
అంతా అప్పట్లెక్కనే
బుద్ధున్ని కూల్చి
శివున్ని
జైనుల్ని కొట్టి
విష్ణువుకి పెడదాం
మనం వండిన ప్రసాదం
మనం అడుక్కుందాం.

an article in 'danse macabre'

an article i'd written on dalit poetry in telugu had been published here:

A television news report I'd seen a few years ago captured this strange tale of a small clan of people living atop trees less than five hundred miles from my desk. They ate, relaxed, slept and lived on the branches of peepul trees in a farm adjoining a village. They belonged to a community of swineherds, people who normally live inside villages or on their fringe, interact with other villagers every day and have a role to play in village life, not a chunk of pre-history that forgot to erase itself, evolve. How could they become so unsure of all firm ground?

Their story illustrates the ineffable nature of the reaches of marginality in Indian society: the abyss of marginality could be lurking outside your door. A single mis-step, and you could drop off the horizon.

Land and caste are dominant themes in poetry in Telugu, by poets from the Dalit Bahujan (or the ‘lower’ castes) communities, because land, as little as a quarter of an acre, means a firmer hold on rural economic life and caste determines your chances of inheriting or acquiring land.

Narayanaswami laments, as though he is talking to himself:

anytime
anywhere
land's the problem
the problem's only land
a little land for food
or for your death
the problem's wholly land

please read the rest of 'I'll weep like Karamchedu!' at the danse macabre, 'Nevada's first online literary magazine'. thanks, nabina, for all the support.

won't you come, mate?

in the indravelli hills
a squad is born
won't you come, mate?

every squad
gave birth to seventy hands
won't you come, mate?

to every tree the hands tied pots
and to every pot they tied the landlords' heads
won't you come, mate?

look! watching the vote yatras and the promises
mother india wept
and in the tears
mother gave birth
to the sun of rebellion
won't you come, mate?

in the singareni coal pits+
ants are born
and as every ant moves daggers are born
and every dagger gives birth to workers' powers
and those powers spill the contractors' blood
won't you come, mate?

in the dandakaranya
the kondhs'* jatara**
on hungry stomachs play the drums of protest
watch how they march to delhi
let's hand over delhi fort to the tillers
won't you come, mate?

that is my translation of a song written, composed and performed by one of my favourite folk poets/bards, vangapandu prasad rao of the jana natya mandali. i haven't been able to find the original lyrics, so had to jot down the lines while listening to the song- would update, edit this when i find the original lyrics. there'd be some lapses- i request readers to tell me about them. you can listen to the song here (first song in the list). it's a version of the song recorded for a film- so, naturally, it uses more instruments and orchestration than vangapandu, as he is popularly known, normally uses in his street/public performances. actually, he only uses a couple of intruments most times- the ghunghroos on his feet and a madiga dappu, perhaps.

* kondhs: he calls them kondollu (people of the hills)- he is obviously referring to the gonds of indravelli (adilabad district, which is adjacent to bastar etc) who are often called by that name by the plainspeople. adilabad and bastar, and other regions of the dandakaranya, have been the loci of many adivasi rebellions in the past 200 years. and also of brutal repression by the colonial and brahminized states. indravelli had been in the news in the early 80s for a tragic incident that occurred on 20th april, 1981- hundreds of gond villagers, part of a large gathering, a peaceful protest rally against atrocities and exploitation (by non-adivasi traders, landlords, babus, policemen and other outsiders), were gunned down brutally by the security forces (official estimates quote a lower figure).

[ here's a link to a news story, in telugu, on indravelli. and here's another account, in english].

**jAtara: fair, religious festival etc.

+ singareni coal pits: the singareni coal mines are spread over adilabad and a couple of other north telangana districts.

new dream

for having skinned the five spirits
by driving a nail into the sky
another into the patala
and soaking the hide in the seven seas you
deserve those sun and moon gods
as sandals for your feet!
in hunger
or in humiliation
head bowed
you stitch
your skin into shoes
grandfather!
i dream
that this world
should turn into a strap
and kiss
your big toe.

my translation of dr. enDloori sudhakar's kotta kala from 'kaitunakala danDem', a collection of madiga poetry.

wasn't it from your blows...

sirs!
weren't we of the superstructure until yesterday
how would we have any base
without any foundation
how can there be any structure
true!

until now, building everything for you
became our only occupation
leaving us with no building of our own

sirs!
look at that
marxism, ambedkarism
the ride on twin bullocks has begun
our madiga dappu had turned cold
having drummed the background score for you all this while
today, with reddening eyes it has turned warm again
readying to compose your funeral beat
wasn't it from your blows, sirs,
that we learnt how to retaliate?
the time will come
the time has to come
saved, like the sharpness of a knife,
the resentment so intently saved in our bellies
isn't it only now, sirs-
that it is gathering strength?
we are boycotting your courts
where those who should be in cages
sit on thrones and deliver judgments
the gun might be yours
but the hands that shall press the trigger are ours
we proudly declare!

my translation of the poem 'meeru koTTina debbala nunchE...' by kO.pra. found that in a recent collection of poetry by madiga poets called 'kaitunakala danDem'.

a love letter to saddam

dear saddam,
i love you
i love you.

the river tigris
the kurdistan hills
the baghdad streets
the iraqi grains of sand,
i love
your love for them.

my dear saddam,
i love you.
i love
your smile.
i love
your tears.
i love
your courage.
you're sweet as dates!
i love you.
i love you.

my dear saddam,
you're the fragrance of flowers
in the hanging gardens
the sandstorm of courage
that rages during al-hijra-
the battle for freedom
in the garden of eden
you're its symbol!
you're its music!
the one who won after defeat!
i love you
whether you're alive, or dead
i love you
i love
your love
for the iraqi grains of sand.

tried to translate 'saddAmku prEmalEkha' written by sivasagar in 2003.

aadminama

duniaa men baadshaah hai so hai voh bhii aadmi
aur muflis-o-gada hai so hai voh bhii aadmii
zardaar, be-nawa hai so hai voh bhii aadmii
nemat jo khaa rahaa hai so hai voh bhii aadmii
masjid bhii aadmii ne banaai hai yaaN miyaaN
bante haiN aadmii hii Imam aur khutba-khwaaN
paDhte haiN aadmii hii Quraan aur namaaz yaaN
aur aadmii hi unkii churaate haiN juutiyaaN
jo unko taaDtaa hai, so hai voh bhii aadmi
yaaN aadmii pe jaan ko vaare hai aadmii
aur aadmii hii teG se maare hai aadmii
pagDii bhii aadmii kii utaare hai aadmii
chillaa ke aadmii ko pukaare hai aadmii
aur sunke dauDta hai, so hai voh bhii aadmii....

excerpt from Nazir Akbarabadi's long nazm Aadminama that i found in adnan's tribute to habib tanvir a few weeks ago. copied it, and forgot to post it- but i don't think that makes it less fresh.

adnan's blog is also an aadminama of sorts. many roads on the internet lead to the west- there are very, very few that take you back to your town, your neighbourhood, your gali, your home. adnan's a journalist of a rare kind, i think. to him, aadmi is still news.

lack of an audience for poetry?

was reading this interesting discussion (thanks, space bar).

the clip i'd posted a couple of days ago- i'd been searching for it for about a year, i think. on etv urdu, especially on sunday evenings, you'd be shown mushairas held in places as remote as jagtial and jagdalpur. all the poets at the events would be covered, all the work they recite, sing, from their first sher to the last nazm, would be covered. who'd watch a program consisting entirely of poetry? people like me, in lakhs, through television. and people who actually are/were at the places were the mushairas are/were held. never less than a hundred, and often running to a few thousands. people, men and women, rich and poor, sitting, in the open most times, for hours, late into the night.

when i was younger, i'd often walk long distances on not-so-walkable city streets to a library or an auditorium where a kavi sammelanam was being held or a book of poetry was being released. at these sammelans, as at those mushairas telecast on etv, one might get to hear only a line or two of impressive verse. most of the poetry could be on well-trodden themes, not very smartly expressed, cliche-ridden. which means you go there expecting nothing more those one or two good lines. and nursing the hope that there'd be more than one or two.

indian poets writing in english are writing for a potential community that consists of english speaking peoples across the world, including india. even if you excluded the rest of the world, the number of people in india who have at least a basic understanding of the language would number more than the entire population of, say, australia (21 million) or new zealand (4 million). or australia and new zealand. so, why isn't there an audience, as some of the poets at the discussion feel, for indian english poetry- in india, especially? i do agree that the audience isn't there, but i don't see anyone exploring the question: why? because there is a tradition or culture, as i pointed out earlier, of appreciating poetry in india. the problem isn't, as someone at the discussion says: less the lack of an audience for Indian poetry but the lack of an audience for poetry in India.

gorati venkanna on rayalaseema: warlords and pawns

update: i thought i'd attempt a translation and add some background notes, but something else is on my mind right now, so i think i'll do it some other day.

the golla's cry

even the best of gollas*
you say, carries a neem seed of obstinacy**
yes. very true!
to disrobe your sins
to gather the debris of your oppression
to set on fire your wayward mane in the village
if you call all this obstinacy
it's not neem seed sized but as large as a palmyra fruit
what can you do about it? i do not care!
shattering the skies
with a golla cry, i tell you
from my forefathers' age
i've been watching your machinations
in the name of land cess
who grabbed the lone rupee from my grandfather
and stuffed it in his safe?
in the name of pasture tax
who took away our goats?
for chopping a branch for our sheep
who confiscated our axe?
'like a ball of butter
you look so lovely lachimi of the gollas
i'll cross your path singing
why don't you trample on my heart golla girl'
singing, who tore apart my grandmother's life?
you, i see, are born of your fathers' hair
like i catch the wolf hiding among the sheep
i've grabbed you by your hair
look! the one after me
sucking at the breast i left
is lying in ambush for the likes of you
'the karanam's grudge***
follows one to the grave you say?'
is your grudge
bigger than my neem seed sized obstinacy pantulu!****

my translation of the poem golla koota by prabhanjan kumar. this poem is also from the padunekkina pAta collection of dalit poetry.
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* golla- yadav
** obstinacy- the telugu word used is verri or werri. inherited wisdom among the ruling classes in telangana (and other parts of andhra pradesh) says every golla shows signs of intractable obstinacy or stubbornness, at least once in his life. for the ruling classes, the golla seems unmanageable on those occasions. the stereotype further imputes a certain foolishness or irrationality to all gollas.
*** karanam- hereditary revenue record keeper in the village in telangana (and other parts of andhra pradesh, karnataka etc.,), following a tradition that goes back a few hundred years. the post was abolished in a widely welcomed move (by the lower castes) by the late n.t.r., a majority of karanams or patwaris were brahmins. karanams used to wield a lot of power in the villages and folk wisdom, even today, warns the unlettered to never cross the karanam's path.
**** pantulu- term used for a brahmin, schoolteacher or literate/learned man (again, mostly brahmins).

jehad

i am watching everything
observing your every move
the bodies that drifted away in the blood rivers of december 6th
i am still searching for them with wet eyes

while no foot can turn a man into man now
i watch them turn into rocks and maniacs

the al kabeer gherao
which stands between my hunger and my livelihood
the falling flag post which turned into a trishul in hubli idgah
'mathura' lying crushed under your kautilyan plans
i am watching all.

thinking, indivar- is the light of our home
rajeev- the fragrance of my heritage
i celebrated
you too turned into vamana's feet
walked over the guldastas of my dreams
to rip open the pyjamas of my trust
hacking me, anointing your foreheads with my blood
leaving me with a bougainvillea citizenship.

with nothing more to bring down
perhaps, you might be annoyed or impatient.
spread your hawk's eyes across the land once
by the yamuna, some mad dada of ours,
you'll find, had turned all his love for dadi ma
into a milk and cream moonlight mansion.
in delhi, someone had plucked a piece of the eastern sky,
you'll see, and planted it as a palace soaked in his blood
my traces shall continue stoking
as qutub minars char minars buland darwazas
jama masjids mecca masjids maharaja palaces
your restless fanaticism.
when you destroyed or cut down throats we stayed silent
as you set fire to our history
and announced compensation with another hand
but- when you break the country into pieces
stamp people down into graves
and raise beasts in the cities, i wouldn't tolerate that
you necrophiliac-
to release the dead if one needs corpses-
it's inevitable
the first corpse would be mine.
i am watching everything.

my translation (like my other attempts, this shall remain a work-in-progress for some time) of jehad, a telugu poem by khaja that i found in padunekkina pAta, a compilation of dalit poetry published in 1996.

kans' computer

kans
had a computer
(why do you laugh)
menaka
got down from a 'helicopter'
in the kurukshetra
(please don't laugh)
where they didn't use nukes
(at krishna's command)
wasn't that good
or
wouldn't bharat's
nation have been wiped out?
you'll agree
we've long had telegraph
and widows*
ganda bherunda was our jet plane
it was called pushpak
i forgot
forgive me
just as kans had a computer
our vedas had marxism
believe it or not
(that's your karma)
if you think
our native toddy
is too potent
savour
the mixed cocktail
of our ancestors'
ghee-soaked lips!

my translation of sivasagar's kansuni computer. the original poem was written during the period of emergency in response to s.a.dange's, leader of the communist party of india, claims that the vedas (or the gita?) contained marxist ideas.

* one telugu word for widow is vithanthu which, sort of rhymes with thanthi, telugu for telegraph.

the sun

the sun's a weaver
with rays as threads
sky as the loom
he weaves the rainbow

the sun's a hunter
with rays as arrows
the sky his forest
he hunts down cheetahs of darkness

the sun's a lover
in the first light of millions of rays
he descends from the sky
and loves earth's silent eyes, deeply.

my translation of sivasagar's sooryudu.

vAkapalli's vow

it'd have been better if we'd related our woes to the trees, the forest,
with leaves and roots they'd have treated our wounds
it'd have been better if we'd told the wind, the earth,
we'd have received some cool relief;
in our heart's hamlet suspicions stoke our wounds,
for justice, we gave up shame,
we brought our pain to the cities
to heal the bruises in our hearts, our honour,
we opened them to the officers;
those who examine and those who rule
those who judge and those who looted us:
we didn't realize they're all one
we spit on you..you scoundrels!
it was our mistake to let you into the forest
it was a bigger mistake to plead for justice outside the forest
evil men!
between your sniggers, artifice and threats
we dusted our tearful skirts --
we're returning to our hamlet,
come into the forest and we shall decide;
one day we know we'll catch you
and we shall extract a just price.

my translation of krupakar madiga's shOkapalli shabadham (first published in surya in december, 2007), a tribute to the women of vAkapalli.

anytime..anywhere

1.
anytime
anywhere
land's the problem
the problem's only land
a little land for food
or for your death
the problem's wholly land
nandigram mudigonda*
today's proper nouns
land's always the common noun
the blood tears spilled for land
eternal historic voyages
when it rains four drops
it's land
that splits into ten seeds
when ten tear drops are spilled
it's land
that flames up in a thousand angers

2.
july twenty eighth
caught in the mouth of the eagle of time
the chick
those who died
those who were wounded
behind the tragedies
carried as news
masked half-truths

3.
yes land's always a problem
those who wilted
in the sun, all season
their plea for shelter
is truly a law and order problem

4.
four of them, united, standing up for four feet of land
deserve, for that crime, to be shot
land to the limit of his padayatra
the one who claimed as his own
crossing nations
the one who gave up whole villages for adoption

the ruler's the same!

made to bear flags like sinners
or shot down like birds
under the ruler's hood
you find the same cunning!

those who lost
loved ones and land, their grief
that brings curses
is everywhere the same!

my translation of the telugu poem eppuDainA..ekkaDainA by narayanaswami, first published in andhra jyoti (august, 2007).
* mudigonda- refers to this incident.