Sometimes one needs a poet to put social reality in perspective. Here is the great Telugu leftist poet Varvara Rao on the recent reservation controversy. Got it off another mailgroup, don't know who the translation is credited to. Please circulate widely.
-------- Lucky You are born rich To say in your language `Born with silver spoon in the mouth' Your agitation sounds creative Our agony looks violent You are meritorious You can break glass of buses In a shape As symmetric as Sun rays You can deflate the tires With artistic élan While indulgent police look on With their jaws rested on rifle butts You can tie `Rakhis' Even in The dark chambers Of a police station You do not buy bus ticket Not because Your pocket is empty That is practical protest The beautiful roads Are all yours Whether you do a `Rasta Roko' Or drive vehicles with `save merit' stickers We are bare-footed Sweat-stinking road rollers What if we built the roads? The merit of plan is yours The credit of contract is also yours Those exhilarating sixty days, what fun! When your cute little girls And their daredevil mates Were going on a delectable rampage, Everybody was delighted Parents, their parents Brothers and sisters Even the servants And reporting Newspapers? Oh, absolutely thrilled! Boys and girls Hand in hand In protest Of buried merit and dashed future Going off to a picnic O Yaar, How heroic! You are the marathoners In merit competition Poor tortoises Can we run with you? If You serve ``Chair'' in Chikkadpalli Sell ``pallies'' in cinema hall Polish boots in Kothi Circle Stop a Maruti or Priya on the Tankbund To demand agitation fund Well Media persons are `merit' creatures Their camera hearts `click' Their pens shriek, ``Youthful brilliance''! We are drab faced duds Sitting in the stink of dead animals We make shoes By applying color with our blood And polishing them With the sinking light of our eyes However, Isn't the shine different When polished By someone in boots? We clean up your filth Carry the night soil on our heads We wear out our bodies Washing your rooms To make them sparkle Like your scented bodies We sweep, we clean; our hands are brooms Our sweat is water Our blood is the phenyl Our bones are washing powder But all this Is menial labor What merit it has? What skill? Tucked-in shirts and miniskirts Jeans and high heels If you sweep The cement road with a smile It becomes an Akashvani scoop And spellbinding Doordharshan spectacle We are Rickshaw pullers Porters and cart wheelers Petty shopkeepers And low grade clerks We are Desolate mothers Who can give no milk To the child who bites with hunger We stand in hospital queues To sell blood to buy food Except For the smell of poverty and hunger How can it acquire The patriotic flavor Of your blood donation? Whatever you do Sweep, polish Carry luggage in railway station Or in bus stand Vend fruits on pushcart Sell chai on footpath Take out procession With `Save merit' placards And convent pronunciations We know It is to show us that Our labor of myriad professions Is no match to your merit White coats and black badges Hanging over chiffon saris and Punjabi dresses `Save merit' stickers On breasts carrying `steth's (stethoscopes) When you walk(ed) in front of daftar Like a heaven in flutter For EBCs among you And those who crossed 12000 among us The reservation G.O. Is not only a dream shattered and heaven shaken But also a rainbow broken Yours Is movement for justice On the earthly heaven That is why `Devathas' dared more for the amrit The moment You gave a call for `jail bharao' In the press conference We were shifted out >From barracks To rotting dungeons Great welcome was prepared Red carpet was spread (`Red' only in idiom; the color scares even those who spread it.) We waited with fond hope that The pious dust of your feet Would grace not only the country But its jails, too How foolish! The meritorious cream The future Of country's glorious dream How can they come To the hell of thieves, Murderers and subversives? We read and rejoice That function halls Where rich marriages are celebrated Became your jails Ours may be a lifelong struggle till death But yours is a happy wedding party of the wealth If you show displeasure It is like a marriage tiff If you burn furniture It is pyrotechnical stuff If you observe `bandh' It is the landlord's daughter's marriage Lucky The corpse of your merit Parades through the main streets Has its funeral in `chourastas' Amidst chanting of holy `mantras' But Merit has no death So You creatively conduct symbolic procession And enact the mourning `prahasan' In us To die or to be killed There is no merit We die With hunger, or disease, Doing hard labor, or committing crime, In lock up or encounter (Meritorious will not agree inequality is violence) We will be thrown By a roadside; In a filthy pit; On a dust heap; In a dark forest We will turn ash Without a trace We will `miss' >From a hill or a hole Our births and deaths Except for census statistics, What use they have For the national progress? We take birth And perish in death In and due to Miserable poverty You assume the `Avatar' When Dharma is in danger And renounce the role After completing the job You are the `sutradhar' You are lucky You are meritorious. -- Question everything -- Karl Marx _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list ([email protected])
