Stork! Stork! Red-legged stork!

Red-legged stork with the coral beak that tapers

Like the cleft root of the fruitful palmyrah tree!

When you and your wife have bathed at the southern cape,

If you should return to the North,

Stop at the home of Sattimurram at our village,

And tell my wife, who must be intently watching 

The clicking lizard on the rain-wet wall,

That in the city of our king Maran,

without a garment, and shivering from the cold,

Covering my body with my hands,

Embracing my bosom with my legs,

And sighing like a snake within a case,

Me, you have seen here.

— Sattimurram Pulavar (translated by C. Jesudasan and Hephzibah Jesudasan)

Let us put aside the arms and convene a round table conference.
We have no nation, no identity,
We have no land to till, no house to live in.
You did not leave even a blade of grass for us since times of Aryavart.
OK, we would forget that.
Are you ready to break the walls that you constructed in the village?
We are ready to dissolve like sugar in milk.
Will you tolerate if your Draupadi selects our son Galiya as her husband?
And will your Arjun accept our daughter Raili if she comes as new Chitrangada?
Let us pull the dead cattle turn by turn, do you agree?
We are ready to eat your leftover food,
Will you eat leftover food at our marriage ceremony?
Let us remove provisions for reservation from our constitution.
Our Magan and Chhagan will compete on open merit basis,
But will you give admission to them in your convent schools?
Let us put aside arms,
and till the fertile land of our country together.
But will you give us half the share of the harvest?

—“Farewell to Arms” by Pravin Gadhavi (translated by G.K. Vankar)

Last night’s cooking fire
Whelped on your doorstep

Your core burned
Ceaseless in her womb
Your bed sucked
Her dry of
Upside-down fortune

Now you must burn
Illuminating dusk
Keep your nest
For her chicks

And of course you must
Bloody your hands
Seek a knife
To cut the cord

Cover yourself my girl
And don’t weep
For the cooking fire
Of yesterday birthed
On your doorstep.

—“Stove (Cul)” Prathiba Pore (translated by Gauri Deshpande)

When I was born I was not a child
I was a dream, a dream of revolt
that my mother, oppressed for thousands of years,
dreamt.

Still it is untouched in my eyes
Covered with wrinkles of thousand years, her face
her eyes, two lakes overflowing with tears
have watered my body
I remember she went for water at your well
a mile away scorched by the summer sun
breathless she returned home and what she offered me,
was not water
but her sweat.

You taught her respect:
‘brother, sir, father, mother, we are your children, let us live, father”
I remember
You allowed her not near the village well
You allowed her not near the village hall
You allowed her not near the letters
In the marshland of your cunningness
You trapped my mother and she struggled.
In your empire so violent
every moment my mother was slaughtered.

She will now breathe in a free air
Her body scorched by sun will get cool shade of neem
Your well will wash her feet and
Your village office will be her throne
Your letters will become her weapons.

Look, I am the lord of Saraswati who was thus far yours and yours alone.
I am the lord of Lakshmi who was thus far yours and yours only
My daughter pulls ears of Ganpati considering him an animal
I do not decorate her eyes with lampblack, but with defiance.
Now they will burn and burn
Your flats and tenements, your schools and your offices
Your chains and your police stations, your village offices and your temples.

I am the live coal, the coal that burns
In the hut that you set ablaze.
I have some wind of the freedom
Now I am the fire.

I remember
When I was born I was not a child
I was a dream,
A dream of revolt
That my mother,
Oppressed for thousands of years dreamt.

—“When I Was Born” Sahil Parmar

It is just as well
that I got to know 
your blindness
from the very start.

Simply because my feet
touched the ground
you are seeking to purify it, 
sprinkling holy cowdung water.

Had I requested 
your house on rent
you would have been enraged
and driven me out
like a pariah dog.

Perhaps you do not know
that the land your house stands on
is surrounded by air
suffused with my dirty breath.
The bricks of your house
have been made from clay
from the river bed
where my humble hut stands, 
molded by the supple hands
of men whom you have discarded, 
calling them untouchable.

Now you have moved
into your beautiful house
you preach that untouchables
are not human beings, 
that they are worse than animals, 
to be despised.

Dear sir, 
if you have the moral courage, 
strip open the walls
and look at the rubble 
and see, 
how each atom of brick and sand
bears the sweet smell
of untouchability. 

—“Smell of Untouchability” Basudev Sunani