anguish

with the burning of crops,

burn our hollowed bellies.

with kerosene waters of our well

burn our dried-up throats.

with the broken huts,

you broke our only shelter,

(We had built it straw by straw

as a tailor-bird builds its nest!)

tell, where could we live

leaving our land behind?

is there any dalitastan like Pakistan?

what is our fault

and what is our folly?

is it our fault

that we scavenged your streets?

it is our folly that we shouldered your dead cattle?

it is our sin that we dressed your adams & eves?

it is our fault that we drudge for you from dawn to dust?

it is our blunder that we washed your bottoms?

and that is why you offered your deity

the live tongue of my bull-like brother?

you feasting vultures of my sister’s teenage flesh,

you grave-digger of my father’s scream

guarding your crop at night,

I swear

by the bleeding flow

of the cut-off little penis of pappu-

I will drown you into the fluid of my person.

you have ridiculed the laments

of my forefathers for centuries.

but you won’t laugh at my fiery anguish.

you trampled the face of my father-

but you won’t trample the thorns-

beware, you will be bruised.

take from me,

that my tolerance is reached to the brim

and the mercury of my fury is running amazingly.

before I pour a drop of acidic ink

on your skin, dumb for time immemorial;

beware and listen-

this is the ultimatum

written in terrorist ink by a dalit poet

-the kali incarnated