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Archive for March, 2016

Ash only knows the heat of burning

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016

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

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