Translated from the Malayalam by Ra Sh
When a dalit writes a poem,
a forefather with matted hair is
seized by frenzy, drumming his udukku.
The blind Godmother black as Goddess Kali
howls out a song that splinters the heart of the earth.
The words sowed like the seeds of small pox
fester, boils on bodies.
lines crawling on the ground roar like
the hunch backed one-breasted Goddess
with a sharp hump on her back.
Noon-time lunacies broil like a severe sun’s glare
and cry out – take us away take us away.
curses upon curses rattle in the small mud pots of
relentless pain till they are thrown at poetry
and shattered.
When a dalit is seized by poetry
and dances in a frenzy, God is stunned.
digs a hole in the ground,
lies in wait for the head pulayan’s palm,
a seed which germinates in the hands
that never stopped feeding
till they went to waste.
When a dalit writes a poem,
time stands still.
Time pleads, “please also, give me a word”.
The word, the earth, the sky, the netherworld,
antiquity, grandeur, the world and the life
stand erect in the wind as one shoot of paddy,
a shoot born from a single mother.
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Dalit – `broken men’ or the downtrodden ones, outcastes, whose status is the lowest in the Hindu religion. Lowest castes who are Untouchables.
Udukku – a small hand-held drum.
