menu a la Indian

Bharatiya Bhojanalaya-

in our holy Hindu hotel we serve no beef ,
neither that non-veg KFC hot-dog

nor minced meat hamburger.

we serve swadeshi no-beef barbecue only :

Hindu's hot favourite,

delicious dalitdish ! 

babies' brains

softer than the swan's
more tender than the turkey’s,

roasted breasts of young untouched girls

more beautiful than the bulbuls.

fried liver of young boys

more playful than the peacocks.

Jetalpur, Golana, Belchhi, Kumher, Kherlanji ---

we have a chain of Hindu holy hotels

in each village and each city

of our purely vegetarian and completely non-violent country

proudly calling itself Gandhi’s Great India .

( note : Jetalpur, Golana, Belchhi, Kumher, Kherlanji -- these are some of the places where gruesome atrocities -- like murder, arson, loot, rape -- on dalits are committed in the recent past)  

Pimpamma Yellamma

“ i will quench the thirst of the thirsty,

i will feed the hungry

and i will shelter the homeless”…

the bewildered girl

in a skirt of leafy neem twigs

takes the oath to Yellamma

admidst the smokes of burning camphor and coconuts,

the entranced devdasis

and the exorcising jogitis—

all swaying

and screaming

and blabbering.

and she’ll entertain the lingam dutifully –

first the pujari ,the temple priest,

and the strongman of the village,

and the stranger,

and on the next Magh Poornima

she’ll return to the red-lit slums

in the all-embracing lap of pan-chewing gharwali.

the fiery deity perennially

plucks the pubic hair of little Yellammas

to ease into the penetrating thrust

of lust and hunger.

jai ho Pimpamma Yellamma.

my lord

my lord Shamaliyo honoured my hundi  --

how would we get Gagli’s gavan,

the bridal sari otherwise

and give her grand send off ?

my vowto our clan-deity Chavanda bore fruit

and the young high caste garasani died.

they draped her corpse with a shroud of red gavan.

flames of her pyre are burning crimson red

and the red gavan is waving at the akdabush !

Gagli’s mother is smiling bitchy black!

let thecorpse-bearers and mourners turn their back

and i shall run to the funeral ghat.

my lord honoured my hundi.

the lord of us untouchable hounoured

the piece of pledge-paper we illiterate never wrote.

( hundi : as the legend goes, penniless Nagar Brahmin saint-poet Narsinh Mehta was granted favour by Lord Krishna, honouringhis hundi - a cheque)   

the song of our shirt

we are a fashionable caste
or tribe you may call:

our forefather Mayo Dhed
had a shirt of 3 sleeves,

his father had a shroud as his shirt
and his father wore a shirt of his own skin.

i am no less fashionable –
just got a pocketless, sleeveless, buttonless
Peter England, the second
from the mall road pavements i sweep.

i flaunt it like Salman Khan,

the bare chested Bollywood hero.

every high caste girl is tempted to pay her  respects

to the label of the lords,
but without touching my collar-bone.

Our shirt has a song to sing
of bizarre fashions.


(note: In medieval Gujarat, untouchables, now known as dalits, were forced to wear 3-sleeved shirt so that caste-Hindus can identify them and keep away from them. The local dalit folklore has a hero called Mayo Dhed who sacrificed his life for doing away with such humiliating practice.)

the misled sun

i have no word of welcome for you,

o saffron sun of the new millennium !
no beating of drums
no blowing of trumpets
nor will i go ga-ga on this gala-eve.

whether you rise from the deep romantic chasm of the Konark apsara
or from the shaft of the Lord Koteshwar ling,
you are no longer the global God,
the messiah sent on the perennial mission
of shining on all and sundry
distributing fraternity, liberty and equality.

you were sent to herald a new day everyday
with a ray of hope for each and everyone.
but you fell prey to the prayers,
succumb to the Brahmins’ shlokas
enamoured of the enchanting riches
tempted by the Aryan offerings
shed all your rainbows to dye in single saffron.

you disowned us dalits
and called it a day.

you now shine on the shrines and skyscrapers
and never even peep into our tanning-pits:
treating us as untouchables.

you made them citizens,
make them netizens
ousting us as the denizens of Narmadas
you made us churn the ocean
to have amrit for them
and poison for us.

father of all bio-diversity,
you are now the mere misled meteor
fallen from the pedestal
devoid of gravity and dignity
the savage son of the universe:
unjust and oppressive .

you are not y2k ok :
a corrupt, varna-virus-affected disk
unfit to be ushered in the next millennium

i curse you
you will diminish on each sob and sigh
of the despaired dalits

let me call Lorca's woodcutter
to cut your evil shadow falling on us
no, i won't bid farewell to your eve
nor shall i welcome your dawn.