You can kill a man any way you want
not only by stabbing him
or throwing a bomb,
by even embracing him with suffocating love
not allowing him to breathe
you can kill a man.
You can kill a man any way you want
not only by mixing poison in his water
by mixing caste too you can take his life
where religion becomes surplus value
not only the noose
the thread around your waist also becomes lethal
when God becomes the symbol of a religion or a caste
in truth, no one's a bigger killer than God
Only someone who has lost faith in men
can trust God
Where, the sword of caste
hangs over our throats, always,
the gun of religion
remains pointed at our hearts
human relations can only thrive
as oceans of tears.
My translation of the Telugu poem 'dEvuDiki minchina hantakuDE lEDu' (from the 1996 collection of Dalit poetry, 'padunekkina pATa') by kO.pra.
Tags: kO.pra