The Shared Mirror

Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy

A bonded labourer was my grandfather

Leaving the cattle at the tank bund

He gathered some water in cupped hands and drank

The news spread through the village

That the tank was defiled

Caste men threw him to the haystacks in flames

And burnt him alive

Unable to bear the burden of the burnt ashes

Mother earth sobbed in lightning and thunder

Then the Lord of the sky poured down as rain

And soothed her

Then was born my father

As cinder was covered in ashes

A bonded labourer was my father

Like his father, craving for a son like him

He prayed standing on his head and stretched his

Hands to the courtyard of the temple

The news spread through the village

That the God was defiled

Caste men lit fire to the hut

The skeleton of my sleeping father inside

Was burnt alive

Unable to bear the burden of the burnt ashes

Mother earth wept and cried, sobbing in earthquakes

The sea rushed in a deluge, soothing her and

Then was I born, a volcano

Now they can’t burn me,

They burn themselves trying to grab me

Because I have turned into

The letter that burns the ignorance,

A witness for the deathless truth

~~~

Translated from the Kannada original by the poet

The usual male priest
was praying to the deity – right, mother?
"The whole time I'm inside the sanctum,
the life in me is rotting away,
I have no entertainment," he said.
Ellamma appeared to him –
"Ask your heart's desire", she said.
"Once a year at your festival
the womenfolk should go naked
in your presence. The whole body
should be revealed to us,"
he replied.
"Granted," said Ellamma, and holding
her sari tight around her,
she climbed the hill.
In this way
an atrocity
was sanctioned by the gods and became
"service in the nude"

Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy's Kannada poem 'bettala seve'  translated by Prof. Rowena Hill. Read his other poems here and here. 

About Bettale Seve: The Dalit movement in Karnataka has had to deal with some of the most exploitative caste-based religious practices. These days various dalit organizations and leaders are engaged in raising awareness about 'Made Snana', and are struggling with the political process to get this practice banned. Back in the 80's and 90's dalit organizations worked hard to expose another reprehensible caste & gender  exploitative practice called 'Bettale Seve' or Nude-worship described in this poem.

Eventually in 1992, a ban was imposed on Bettale Seve at Chandragutti temple.

"Chandragutti, a village in Shimoga district is situated at a distance of 16 km, west of Sorab taluk. There is a temple of the goddess, built in 14th century, at the top of Chandragutti hill. The faithful from Dalit and bahujan communities were (are?) made to believe that the speciality of this temple is that Dalit women and men must go naked to worship this devi since the puranas says that if people go naked and pray to the devi they get all their wishes fulfilled, and people who do not follow these traditions meet with a lot of calamities . Hence, for hundreds of years, in the month of March, thousands of men and women were seen marching into the temple completely naked and offering their prayers to the goddess. Some emancipated youth tried to stop this practice in 1984. But these activists were thrashed by goons and supporters of the temple-priests, paraded naked, and made to worship the devi. The victims included police officials even women police officers.

A committee investigated the religious sanction of Nagna-puja gave a report in 1988 stating that there is no such sanction in Hinduism. Amidst hue and cry the practice was stopped. Still incomplete in implementation, the law stems out of a central objection that the presentation of nude women invariably is a prelude to their enticement into prostitution."

To the ka ka

sound of cawing

crows

father gets up, says

"mother the white

dawn has come."

Picking up his sleeping rag,

he puts it on, thinks

the calf might stray, and runs

to his master's house.

My mother his wife

follows behind him,

mucks out the byre,

spreads fresh dung on the floors,

cleans her teeth and cringes

outside,

filling a fold in her sari,

with the house's leftovers.

Under the noonday sun

father ploughs and sows

and draws water from the well;

he pours drops of blood

turned to sweat, and all

to fill someone else's corn bin.

Milking buffaloes, grazing

cows, fattening sheep,

taking them to water and bathing them,

herself without shelter,

my mother stands –

and not even a cup of milk

for her own child.

The lambs are sold for necklaces

for someone else's throat.

In her own house

there's no calf to prance around,

no cows to swing their horns,

no veranda to decorate

with rangoli.

But what devotion

to things that don't belong to her!

The bodies so battered

by master's bad temper

and mistress's selfishness

cling together and enter their hut.

As they fall asleep

an owl

says "guk".

Life's like that is a poem from Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy's selection of poems translated by Prof. Rowena Hill. In 2002, he conceptualized and directed the play 'Bahuroopi' with the Rangayana Repertoire for the National Drama festival held at Mysore. This poetry based drama reflected the theme of social justice in Kannada Poetry from the 10th Century onwards. 

M. Chinnaswamy is a noted public speaker and a vocal advocate for eradicating caste system, the inhuman practice of untouchability and against fundamentalism. He is the founder President, Buddhist Literary and Cultural Association, Gadag and Director, Dalith Sahithya Parishath, State Committee which is instrumental in spreading subaltern culture and literature. 

                                                   (in the wake of Ambedkar)

The sound that I make

ears do not hear –

it breaks out

like hidden music.

Knocking, it doesn't strike

chords on the heart –

like a volcano

it streams flame,

kindling forest fires.

The sound that I make

does not ferment

like milk

and become butter –

as if smashing rocks

it beats,

cracked walls

tumble down harshly.

The sound that I make

does not deceive politely

or bury itself in the mouth –

it's a dazzling sword

brandished and

swung at earth.

The sound that I make

doesn't cool the eyes like sheet lightning –

like thunderbolts

it flashes

striking

all inhuman

systems

and conditions.

By Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy, translated by Prof Rowena Hill. 

He says:

 I had my own grammar, but experience was the main ingredient. That was why my poetry evaded imitation

In someone's shed

in someone else's arms

the boy has slept;

he gets up at dawn, kicks the laggard beside him,

hangs a bag over his shoulder,

and out he goes into lanes and filthy alleys.

He comes to a corporation dump,

stands with clasped hands as if discovering a treasure,

turns on himself and wades in;

his hands sift

as if removing a tiny piece of severed intestine

with a doctor's eye.

Among the broken glass there,

the plastic bottles,

the torn rubber condoms,

the old papers he lifts

where some housewife has wrapped a sickening red tampon –

below all that, something brings a smile:

a torn and patched two-rupee note.

Here and there, once pretty broken dolls

may kindle a light in his mind,

finding marbles can push him

into playfulness.

Like this broken eggshells may cut his feet,

he may thrust his hand into the pocket of old shorts

and touch a blunt blade

and the gush of spurting blood

will further squeeze his sapless frame.

Without parents, he has company,

though an orphan he is well satisfied!

What remains in cans emptied by rich men's children

or bottles thrown away by their fathers becomes holy water.

Leftovers sticking to leaf plates become prasad.

Opening his mouth for a bidi stub,

he leaves for the next lane.

Standing where he should not stand,

sitting where he should not sit,

scratching his sores

when flies and insects swarm round him,

shuffling and searching his precious collection

piece by piece again and again,

surrendering it for a few coins to the broker,

at last he throws himself down in someone else's shed,

someone else's child.

This week, The Shared Mirror is featuring poems by the Kannada Poet Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy. 'To a rag-and-bone boy' is one of the 41 poems translated by the British born Spanish poet, Rowena Hill. The Spanish versions have been published by the Venezuelan Govt. In her foreword she describes the poet's sensibilities thus:

A poet such as Chinnaswamy, whose mind is a constant source of images of all kinds and who has an unusual facility for playing with the sounds of his resonant language, will never allow himself to become a poet of pure lyricism and personal feeling. So that the subjects of his poems, which may sometimes seem even too crude, are the poverty of the untouchable peasants and the discriminations practiced against them in the villages, or their exploitation, often literally criminal, by “caste” people, or the suffering of mothers watching their children go hungry. Shit, rags, filth, are often centre stage in the poems.

If I was a tree

The bird wouldn’t ask me

Before it built its nest

What caste I am.

When sunlight embraced me

My shadow wouldn’t feel defiled.

My friendship with the cool breeze and the leaves

Would be sweet.

Raindrops wouldn’t turn back

Take me for a dog-eater.

When I branch out further from my roots

Mother Earth wouldn’t flee shouting for a bath.

The sacred cow would scrape her body on my bark,

Scratching wherever it itched

And the three thousand Gods sheltering inside her

Would touch me.

Who knows,

At the end,

Hacked into pieces of dry wood,

Burning in the holy fire,

I might be made pure, or becoming the bier for a sinless body

Be borne on the shoulders of four good men.

If  I was a tree  is a poem by Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy. He is a Kannada poet, writer and playwright. His first poetry book “Kondigalu mattu mullubeligalu” (Links and Barbed wire) published in 1989 was attributed with reviving Kannada Dalitha-Bandaya poetry. His writings forces caste into the literary landscape, infusing it with the often-missing truth about Indian society. 

M. Chinnaswamy’s day job is that of Chief Accounts Officer cum Financial Advisor at Bengalaru Metropolitan Transport Corporation. He has published several books, writes and directs plays, and conducts workshops on poetry. His past poetry reading venues include; Los Angles, Granada, Merida, Caracus, Tel Aviv etc. His translated poetry has appeared in English and Spanish journals, including the literary journal Arquitrave and a selection of his poems has been published by the Cultural dept of Venezuela Govt in ‘World Poetry Series’. His poetry has been translated into several Indian languages, including Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam and Urdu. Several of his poems are prescribed reading in high school, colleges as well as in University courses by Govt of Karnataka.

Starting today, The Shared Mirror will feature a selection of his poems; their translation has been rendered by Prof Rowena Hill.