Poems - Dalit Studies

Dalit Studies Kandathi - Raghavan Atholi
Before the garbage heap in the street

Portrait of my village - Sukirtharani A hungry woman waits.
Turning her back
How can I bear to see On the parting day’s sullen face,
my dry lands, surrounded by rocks and hills, Clutching at her sinking wages,
rent, as if by an earthquake's fissures? A bundle of fodder
The thick sour smell Wrenched out of the earth
of the fermented gruel Balanced on her head,
paid as wages for grass cut and bundled, She waits.
received with palms cupped and raised, Late into the night
hands already ripped by ulundu plants - In her pitch black hut
still pervades the body, like a ductless gland. Guarding a cold meal
When the single measure of paddy - She waits.
flung to us for carrying away and burying
their dead animals - turned to chaff, The stones her hands broke up,
the tormenting hunger that followed The furrows of tears
still moves in the memory. She cast her seeds into,
Our bare feet are drenched The team that groaned
by the pain of caste that drips from our lips As hand-to-mouth carts lurched,
as we drink tea from palm-leaf cups, Generations that staggered and fell,
standing at an untouchable distance, Sons who never came back,
while the portrait of our village Clans that vanished in the wild,
frames itself at a place of double existence, Treacherous pathways that turned into quicksand,
always vigilant. Full barns,
Empty hovels,
A goddess shrunken into an old crone.
On the hedge
The child was nursed with tears.
Hopes went to rot in the ditches like coconut husk
And returned beaten and baked by the sun. Water - Challapalli Swaroopa Rani
Rushing feet crushed the handful of rice
Spilt from the beggar’s cupped hands. Just as the water knows
The parched throat cracked up The ground’s incline,
Before the battle for water was won. It knows the generations-old strife
Between the village and the wada.
This battered woman, Like the dampness on the well’s edge that never dies.
My flesh and blood,
My mother. The water knows everything.
Today It knows the difference of race
She waits for the light that went out to return, Between the Samaria woman and Jesus the Jew.
For a handful of rice untainted with blood, It also knows the sub-caste difference
For a piece of land untainted with greed. Between leather and spool
It knows the agony of the Panchama,

Who, not having the right to draw a pot of water,
Waits all day near well
With his empty pot
Until a shudra arrives
It knows the humiliation

Of the wada girl
When he who poured the water from a distance,
falls all over and touches her
It knows the righteous rage

Of Karamchedu Suvarthamma
Who opposed the kamma landlords
With her water pot
When they asked her not to pollute the pond water.
The water is witness
To centuries of social injustice. I remember,
Its thatched roofs aflame,
When I see water The Malapalle burning ashes
I remember For want of a pot of water.
How my wada which would thirst all day
For a glass of water Water is not a simple thing!
It can give life
For us, water is not simply H2O, But it can also devour lives.
For us, water is a mighty movement. The water that refused to quench parched throats
It is the Mahad struggle at the Chadar tank. Became the killer tsunami wave,
A single drop of water embodies That swallowed whole
Tears shed over several generations. Village after village.
In the many battle we fought
For a single drop of water, The poor are but playthings
Our blood flowed like streams. In its vicious hands.
But we never managed to win Often, it turns village into dry deserts
Even a small puddle of water And sometimes it drowns them in flood.
When I see water, Between the village and the wada

I remember Between one state and another,
How we welcomed our weekly bath This water can ignite many struggles and strife.
As if it was a wondrous festival! It can make blood run in streams.
While the entire village bathed luxuriously- But it can also sit innocently
Twice a day In a Bisleri bottle
When I see water, This water from our village well

I remember That forces us to do many a circus feat,
My childhood, Now slowly, surreptitiously,
When we walked miles Dances its way into the Pepsi man’s bottle.
To reach the big canal With its new name ‘mineral water’
And carried back heavy pots, It takes to skies,
It raises a storm Hunger - Namdeo Dhasal
Now Hunger
Water is no mean matter.
It’s a multinational market commodity. Unable to do this ione thing and able
To solve or not solve theorems
As they say Will hunger –fires forge a poem?
Water is omniscient.
Will music die in the fire of hunger?
It contains the world
How difficult music is
To him who cannot count the best of his own pulse.
Who hadn’t thought that fees couldn’t be claimed
For singing songs of hunger.
Hunger
A fruitless thing
However hard you work
The reward is still stones
If stones cannot build a house
We’ll not manage to live in it.
Hunger you are mouse, cat, lion in turn
How long can mere mortals like us stand
I this game that you’ve set up?
2. Hunger
a shrewd peace is growing everywhere
this is the beginning of our new life sentence
hunger forgive us that we cannot cut the tree of time Order, let lightening course through the guts
but even cut, the sky will still be blue. Order, let life get charged
To which market can we carry dumb hearts? Wounded seas and the long moans of our demands
Where auction them Hunger, say yes to our dreams
Where day sweeps life Don’t snuff out the orphan huts upon the shore
Who will buy crushed hearts We’ll see later
Who will profit by the deal? The gold-threaded struggle
Hunger, tell us your game, your strategy Between the snail of pain and the sea.
If we can muster guts enough
We’ll fight you to the finish 3. Hunger
Can’t crawl and grovel on our stomachs we have made our demand
Too long with you let you need us
How much can we wash the grime off hunger? will we never grow?
How much wash the dust off years? Let us grow
How much scorn to the very ends of scorn? The sun may blithely have forgotten dawn
Hunger, if a bridge of iron will not join you to us The river may blithely have forgotten time
Then let us fly free like unfettered birds We wanted more from light
Hunger, your land , the thorns upon your land, Than mere life
Fester in the brain all night But light turned false.
Till the brain itself freezes. Hunger,
Hunger, when a thing is taken from the fridge We will not allow a column of cloud to stand,
Is it still fresh? Indifferent, to our door
Hunger your every blood drop is cold How much more can we thank
Your every blood drop is mute Pain the music in pain
If we have not made ourselves a tidy life Our tribe will have to kill itself
What right do we have to quarrel with the flowers? Hunger we have all the aces
How much can we excite pain Why talk of the songs of the half-sexed jacks?
How much can we burn Here’s our manhood before you now,
How much can we catch the fire that burns forever? Let’s see who wins this round
If our words find no expression You or we.
In this stream of sun
We’ll salute you like defeated soldiers 5. Hunger
Whoever said that every soldier in the army which came first, seed or tree?
Fights like a man? Hunger you make things too difficult
Hunger just tell us what breed this monkey is
4. Hunger, And if you can’t
There’s not a single grain in our house today Then we will screw
not a single clever brain in our house today Seventeen generations of you
hunger Hunger, you and your mother..
if one sings till the last light of the innermost being
will it turn off hunger-light?
Hunger if one takes care of you now
Will it darken?
Hunger, your style is your own
No other calamity comes our way
But you.
Hunger, if we cannot mate you
Cannot impregnate you

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Dalit Studies Kandathi - Raghavan Atholi

Before the garbage heap in the street

It knows the agony of the Panchama,

It knows the humiliation

It knows the righteous rage

When I see water, Between the village and the wada

When I see water, This water from our village well

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