Landless
Go away!
YOU!!
What do you want?
Season after season,
we see you.
The likes of you.
What do you want to know?
Caste?
no, we are Outcastes.
Food?
hardly.
Home?
if you call it so.
Land?
no. No. NO.
Listen!
Do you want to know something?
Give us land.
Some land.
Not promises, but land.
Land, we can call our own.
Land, with no landlord.
Land, we could work on.
Land, whose product we could own.
So, no one could throw us out
burn our homes
rape our women
roast us alive.
Yes, give us land.
Then we will have food.
Clothes.
Home.
Dignity.
Maybe, we will have a Caste too.
Right now,
we have nothing.
We are landless.
LOOKING AFTER
Goats do not talk.
Goats do not play.
They only play tricks on me.
Crossing into people's fields.
That hurts.
Abuses. Slaps. Kicks.
By the owner of the field.
By the owner of the goats.
By father too.
I mustn't let the goats play tricks.
I mustn't sleep.
I mustn't lie under the tree.
But I want to talk.
I want to play.
With someone.
Anyone.
And I want to go to school.
Like I used to.
To read. To count.
To add and subtract.
To play.
That was fun.
But Ma said : School isn't for the likes of us.
I must look after goats.
Other people's goats.
It is two rupee fifty paisa per month.
For each goat.
It adds up.
It helps.
I do not mind.
If only the goats didn't play tricks on me.
If only there was someone to talk to.
To play with.
Looking after goats,
other people's goats,
is no fun.
'Cause these goats do not talk.
They do not play.
They only play tricks on me.
Ramnad District, Tamil Nadu
BLOSSOM IN THE DUST
Mighty is the flower which blooms
in a desert.
The blossom in dust.
Sure there are holes in the sari.
The bare feet look tired and tense.
But there is ribbon in the hair.
And the eyes are deep and soft.
Is it the desert which defines
the flower?
Or the flower which defines the desert?
Orissa, 1969
Naxalbari
It is time to start again.
'Cause it rained.
Not a lot.
But the earth is soft.
More, for sure,
will come.
For now,
soil must turn.
The cycle must churn.
It is my land.
And it isn't.
It is mine because I work on it.
Plough it. Seed it. Nurse it.
Know every bit of it.
Have done so all my life.
My father too.
And his father.
It is not land.
It is Ma
Dharti Ma.
Eternal Ma.
Mother Earth.
Bountiful. Kind. Generous.
Season after season.
Year after year.
It gives us all what we need.
It is all what we seek.
Yes, it is all what we seek.
'Cause this land is NOT mine.
'Cause I do not get all what it gives.
The mother gives.
As reward for my labour.
Our labour.
The landlord takes much of it away.
As rent.
As interest for the money
his father gave my father.
He does not labour.
He only owns my land.
Many people's land.
All that we changed.
We rose.
Thousands upon thousands of us.
Together.
With bows and arrows. Spears. Guns.
They ran away.
The landlords.
The money-lenders.
The State.
We bacame Naxalbari.
And the land, this land
was all mine.
But they came back.
Something went wrong.
Army. Police. Tanks. Flames.
Our leaders in jail.
Our brothers and sisters,
our neighbors, slain.
There will be time to start again.
To take it over.
No more rent.
No more interest.
In the meantime,
it is time to plough the land.
My land.
Our land.
REFRIGERATOR
Refrigerator.
For dry, thirsty tongue and throat.
Cold water bottles can be stocked.
Also Thumps-Up, Pepsi or Coke.
Ice is there, when needed.
Butter doesn't melt.
For breakfast in the morning
One doesn't have to go shopping.
Eggs, sausages, loafs of bread.
Enough for a table's spread.
So also mangoes, apples, guavas.
Grapes and papayas.
And the many sauces.
And cheeses.
Today's milk can be used tomorrow.
Food doesn't have to be cooked
everyday.
Not that those who have refrigerators
have to cook.
Cooks, mostly, cook for them.
Still, the left-overs can be put away.
For the day after, or the next day.
Mutton Do-piaza
Fish Masala
Mughlai Chicken
Murgh Biryani
Or plain dhal, subzi and rice.
It can all be kept, and saved.
Yes, it is good to have
a refrigerator.
As long as you do not have to haul it.
On your bare back.
Up the hill.
Hill after hill.
Curve after curve.
There are others
who will do it.
For a hundred rupees.
Who do not have to worry
about left-overs.
But only for what they have,
or can have,
want to have.
For the day.
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