The Shared Mirror

Yes

I am the Madiga tappeta* which hung on the wall until yesterday

Today

I've come to your street

I won't deny that

until yesterday our homes were the graveyards outside the village

But today

we've built the tombs

of our brothers,

killed by your dark shadows,

right in front of your temples.

And now

the tombs which have sprung up in the middle of your village

need a path

you..move!

I gift you

the space

I left outside the village.

 

My translation of the Telugu poem 'lE…lErA!' by Ram (from the 1996 collection of Dalit poetry 'padunekkina pATa').

* tappeTa: also called Dappu, a drum used by the Madigas. Read more about it here.

Tags: Ram

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Poetry, Telugu, Translations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.