i
will get you this Savarnpuri burnt into ashes.
fill
in my elephantine brain a gallon of gunpowder
i
will get you razed all to the ground
grind
my bones and collect all phosphorous,
and
like gulal sprinkle it on their white faces
or
draw tripundra on their foreheads.
squeeze
out all my words
to
collect bowls of green poison
and
pollute their pitchers of gangajal.
now
break into pieces my beloved pen --
it
only cries like the saras-crane incessantly.
take,
my dear brethren, all I have I dedicate to you:
make
from my bones vajra or kavach.
i
am son of a chamar, the skinner,
the
tanner and the carcass collector.
what
else can I do for you while living like this?
if
you ask, shall I flay some savarna skins
to
make you chappals?
shall
i pierce with my knife-sharpening aar
those
gluttonous bellies that took away your morsel
and
you feed on them from the boiling pot
adding
a pinch of salt?
i
can no longer see and hear –
these
rivers of blood,
these
sky-scraping lamentations,
these
cries of sufferings,
these
flames burning our bastis.
(
Dadhichi, a rishi in Hindu mythology is credited with giving up his life
in order to allow the Devas use his
bones to make weapons to defeat the Asura Vritra )
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