Monday, April 12th, 2010
My grandfather,
the starvation death
which occurred during the drought when men were sold
My father,
the migrant life
which left home in search of work to pay off debt
I, in ragged shirt and shorts,
the salute to the flag hoisted in school.
– My translation of the Telugu poem 'Indian Heritage' by Taidala Anjaiah (from his collection 'PunAsa').
Saturday, April 10th, 2010
We are the wounded of a thousand generations
and not those who ever gave up arms
We are the veteran soldiers of a thousand defeats
and not those who ever surrendered
We are the sacrificial lambs of a thousand betrayals
and not the cowards who ever strayed from the path
We are the hardened warriors
who survived amid a thousand penal codes
Ours are the thousand and one springs
among the thousand winters
We're adivasis
We're women
We're dalits
We're blacks
-My translation of the Telugu poem 'mEm' (from the collection 'naludikkula nunchee ranDi') by Dalitbahujan poet and activist J. Gautam.
Friday, April 9th, 2010
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 Sooryudu, a Telugu poem by Dalit poet K.G.Satyamurthy ( 'Sivasagar'). Source: his collection, Sivasagar Kavitvam (1968-2002).
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
Wherever sound loses
silence wins
after digging for many days
your hands may become sore
but your eyes moisten
soon as you see a little water.
Returning from cutting ribbons at all doors
I realized I had not opened the door to my own room
someone's calling me, repeatedly,
I thought I was being called
I realized later that they were calling themselves.
whenever I climbed up
they invited me with applause
but when I started for the next step
I heard someone asking me to step down.
I roamed all over the garden
a jasmine creeper caught my attention
it had its own personality
whatever it clung to was covered
it could look at the world on its own.
I will win the whole world
some victor
would arrive and win me,
it's useless
therefore
first, I will
win myself
then
I'll run the world.
My attempt at translating the Telugu poem 'Sweeya Mudra' (from the collection 'Bhoomi Bhasha') by Dalit poet and activist Katti Padma Rao.