Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Melancholy of a Crow- by sudhakar yendluri
Mother!
Srisaila Bramarambika Devi
Mother! I have understood that
“Don’t touch me, my Mala crow”
You know that my entry defiled it
You got your temple perfectly cleansed
By which Dharma was it done?
I am a bird
That picks up grain
From the manure-heaps
Shivakamini!
By which tradition was it cleansed?
Do you know what ornithology says?
Whether I was Mala[1] crow or Madiga [2]crow
Did you fact-find it?
Do your temple- trustees and priestly classes know
That there is one crow- world?
In the Kakasura[3] story
I have lost my eye
Blames and defames
I have been subjected to since then
Of my wings
One is for darkness
And another for light
Be it darkness or light
Or thunderbolts that can be given for this world
Only when I flap my wings with a cry
What distinction is there
Between me and the bat
That has not yet got entry merit?
What is my varna-flaw?
You consumed ghee[4]
And left excreta to me
Dead ancestors are offered Pindakudu[5]
Then I am called by caw -caw
I am the scavenger-crow
That cleaned your fetor
Am I rejected now?
In the lone world
Have I become a desolate crow?
Motherjee!
Did you not see the dirty parrots
Perching so many times on your temple-domes?
Did owls not cry so many times on your head?
On your temple- pillars
Did vultures not eat dead rats several times?
Is it I who has become so discarded?
Is this ‘cleansing’ for my sake?
Offence on my part! What?
Do you not know the essence of philosophy?
If submission is God’s offer
Can you tell me whose faeces is this?
If Bramarambika’s is the holy water
Can you disclose whose piss is it?
If I drop my filth from any tree
It will not smell foul
Though I am black in colour
Why my faeces is white
Did anybody unravell this secret?
Did anybody read the myth of a crow?
There is a priestly class to clean you
Who is there to clean my community and me?
Goddess Brahmarambika!
I survive without security
Did I ask for golden cages
Or for pattu pitambaralu?[6]
Unbearable to the burning sun
I entered your temple
Mother!
For the sake of coolness
And for a little drinking water
I cried caw –caw
This is my mistake
Whether my defilement was properly cleansed
Lest, the sin of my birth should afflict you
Your people cannot live the life of a crow
And the grave life
But my people can do.
1. A sub-caste in the Dalit community 2. A sub-caste in the Dalit community, both the castes have been considered degraded in Hindu society 3. It is a mythical story of a crow in the Ramayana 4. A type of clear butter used in Indian cookery 5. A ball of food offered ceremonially to spirits of dead ancestors
representing an offer of clothes
varthamanam (the presence time)
I can't talk now about my nation.
my country ia a Sakuntala
Delivered of and forgotten.
I'am a refugee bird in my land.
I'm one shedding tears between swords and horns
I'm not a millionaire hood.
On tens and thousands of hoods,
I stand as a bubble.
It's me every piece of the mirror being broken.
I can't walk fearless between any two men.
I can't live in peace between any two Gods.
Between two languages -my conversation snubbed.
Between two rivers -union of waters prohibited.
I stuck the national flag
On my chest.
Listening to lessons of history
In my childhood class
I preserved the flower of my country
In my school bag.
Bags touched-bombs blast now
Hearts moved-fires hiss.
Now this nation like a black boar frightens me
With it's lust for blood.
This country- aquestion paper with no key
They send word to Siddhartha having cut the wings of swans.
Here, the state it self shoots ,yet rewards the dead.
Inaugurates flower gardens ,yet prohibits fragrences
Stifling the throat of the nation ,broadcasts the anthem
Some where down the well a frogling is croaking.
Some mad cap of poet is
Singing MERA BHATRTH MAHAN in a dreams meet.
News papers carry the soaked blood all night.
Some VISWAMITHRA is laying the foundation stone
For a heaven neither here nor there.
Some one is administering anaesthesia to BHARATHA MAATHA
Some body is leaving me among
Mechines alienating me.
I'm searching for my mother land
With an iron stove on hea
And a blanket of sorrow
I'am going for my mother's breast.
If i'm not reborn
Crusifing,nailing, crowning my self
Resurrecting in the land of expiration,
I'm in eligible to live in this land.
If i can't sing in the chorus
My song is a crime now.
I don't intend to sing the
Lines with which I don't agree.
I don't wish to see the men in my nation
As devine or sage like.
I wish to see the sheen of clusters of clouds
In men as either
Bunches of shrubs smelling sweet
Or as perennial rivers spreading wavelets.
I dream of the nature's beauty at dawn
Shattering demonic darkness to pieces.
I don't like even an ant to be alone.
I can't bear even a puppy dying of hunger.
I tune on my dream KANJIRA new songs.
Standing on live coal I intone the truth.
I look for a new season
Of an uninfected man-tree.
A dream on behalf of a million eyes
Of the present, a new nation.
by
YENDLURI SUDHAKAR(telugu)1992
' MO'(english)