The Shared Mirror

In the beginning, they came to the banks of the Sindhu for livelihood

With deceit, they drove out the Moolvasis who welcomed them

 

Next, with a sense of defeat, they infiltrated Buddhism

With treachery, they uprooted its foundation of equality

 

They penetrated Jainism, Shaivism as spies

and upheld the Manuwad of penal codes as the universal truth

 

In the guise of avatars they suppressed all Shudra emperors

With an axe they decimated all dynasties and seized control

 

Where they lost, they waited as ministers..where they won

they became prophets..and lords of Agraharas

 

Frightenened by British cannons, they ushered them inside

Brought down those who resisted with bullets

And sent the heroes to the gallows

 

When the time was right they called for a struggle..for freedom

Through the scheme of transfer of power they became the rulers..

and also the opposition

Sporting a red rose, they spread a red carpet

for capital

They penetrated Marx's beard and Lenin's button

and called themselves the left

 

If they approved, it was progress, and casteism if they disagreed

Russia's the weapon they said, China's empowered they said

The mind's Mao's, they said, and the patent is ours, they said

They turned specific realities unspecific

and became loudmouthed Gireeshams*.

* * * * * * *

The Vanara army has been wagging its tails..from then till now

If not, as feathers on tails..then as flies on feathers,

According to the only history of all the Mahaprasthanam** of progress

 

The history of speaking the truth and getting heads chopped is ours

Let us step into the cage+

By the people..for the people..that's the rulers' assertion

People are the builders of history….that's the revolutionary rulers'  statement

Who are the people? Where is people's history?

We have a glorious history of braving ostracisms

Let us step into the cage

Only the heirs of the bloodthirsty Parasurama clan

Became the leaders of the peace talks++

Only the middlemen of Hindu imperialism are talking about autonomy

The talk of land distribution here is a conspiracy..

The Brahmanyam hiding behind land is a conspiracy

 

History's a conspiracy..the progress of history's a conspiracy

The media's a conspiracy.. progressive intellectuals are a conspiracy

The parliamentary democracy guarding

the four-hooded Hindu caste serpent is a mammoth conspiracy

 

Our courage

is of those who were pushed into the list of traitors by back-stabbers

Let us step into the cage;

All through history, there's been a conspiracy against the Moolvasis

A conspiracy against the Sun of Mahajana revolution's pointer finger+++

A conspiracy against the fragrance of social democracy.

 

My translation of J.Gautam's Telugu poem 'chuupuDu wElupai kuTra' (from his collection of poetry 'nalu dikkula nuncii ranDi').

 

* Gireesham: pronounced 'giriiSam'; a character from the satrical epic play 'kanyASulkamu' written by Gurajada Apparao, a social reformer and writer-poet (in Telugu and English), in 1892. Gireersham is a smooth talking trickster who poses as a progressive thinker fighting for the freedom of 'nautch girls' and widow remarriage. Gurujada pioneered the movement for democratizing literary language by celebrating dialects of the masses and broke the hold of Sanskrit on written Telugu. A humanist, Gurujada in one of his popular songs pointed out: 'a nation is not land (or soil), a nation is people'.  Gurujada's work can be viewed as a perceptive commentary on the social reform and nationalist movements of the late nineteenth century; and Gireesham as an early representaive of Macaulay's savarna 'interpreters'?

** Mahaprasthanam: or 'mahAprasthAnam'; a poem, and an anthology, written by Marxist poet Srirangam Srinivasa Rao (popularly known as 'Sri Sri') in which he echoed the Marxian view that all history was the history of class struggles.

+ cage: the Telugu word used in the poem is 'bOnu', which also refers to the witness box in a court of law.

++ peace talks: probably refers to the peace talks between the Government of Andhra Pradesh and the Maoists (formerly 'People's War Group') held in 2004.

+++ pointer finger: the Telugu word used in the original poem is 'cuupuDu wElu' ('the finger that points', roughly). So I thought,  'pointer finger' was a better choice than 'forefinger' or 'index finger'.

Tags: J.Gautam

This entry was posted on Friday, October 29th, 2010 at 3:40 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.