self–introduction

be my guest someday, sawarna.

if  you want to feel the pangs of woes

come in the guise of an untouchable.

see, yonder is the way to our village from the city.

avoid that tallest mansion-

our young girls are seduced there customarily.

he would not spare even a young bitch!

don’t ask for water from the public  water-pots.

do  you know

how to drink water with the bowl of your palms?

and don’t ask for my address there-

someone will make faces

or  someone may call you names.

looking left and right

don’t think you will locate my home here-

here lives brahmins, kanbis, kolis,

potters, blacksmiths and others.

yes, cross that hillock beyond the boundary.

and there appears huts buries under the tamarind trees.

or there may be two or three dogs licking the bones.

dark and half-clad bodies:

yes sawarna, they my kin and kith-

mother is roasting beefs at home.

father is rinsing hides in the tanning-pit.

this is my uncle

tailoring a leather-bag for kanbis.

sister-in-law is peeling the aval stems.

and nanki has gone with pitcher to fetch water from the tank.

that’s all, sawarna.

don’t cover your nose with the scented handkerchief.

you may suffccae,

you may nauseate the sight of squabbles.

but see,

here I am reading Pablo Neruda

laying on the charpai under the neem tree

I feel some time a lone man myself

on this island of ours.

my father said, sawarna -

your hic-cup was cured by the salty waters of our tanning-pit

in your childhood.

we can love each other

if you can shed your orthodox skin.

I am no leper

come and touch, we will make a new world-

where there, won’t be any

dust, dirt, poverty, injustice, oppressions.