Life-en-treats

The traditional words pushed me around Into asking just one question Who am I? And I knew I would be condemned if I said my name. I pleaded ignorance And ran on the path of seeking realizations, until dissatisfied I found resolution in learning to just say, I am not that name. Strangely, I found you. You were not supposed to be there Or anywhere near. You have asked me too, every morn, in awe, who are you? I could have simply said, ‘I am not you’ But I knew you would be angry and so I chose to stay quiet.

I have looked in the mirror And found you I have felt disgusted. Can I change this smile, this grin, this tear… If only I could… You pervade my life In spite of my conscious rejections. Your prolonged existence is choking me It stagnates my efforts, stunts my movements. You cry at all this, But you don’t realize that the male, malicious contents prolongedly exist in your and my relations, in your and my bodies coaxing us both into often looking into the mirror and crying . And often have I lost you thus.

What is it that brings us together Again and again, No matter how much we fight, differ or be similar. It is not love, for there was no love ever Only unsuccessful attempts At self-hypnotic assurances All psychological strategies-a web of thoughts that eludes us in the final run. No compassion or sympathy. Lets ask ourselves, Of the difference, loss or gain we would make to each other. Between you and me We have shared a few sentences. And the sentences, no, they were not special or anything Like the immortal ‘I love you’ They just were there… And I wonder at how We both together, make it our task to reinterpret, rewrite and make corrections in the grammar and structure of just those few clustered words. And we have gone on for so long, without satisfaction or benefit.

My Poem My poems do not narrate a story, And don’t intend falling into the spaces and triads of music. To the rhythms of tunes, rhymes, drums, - they don’t respond. They contain no deceit, no pre-meditated device With no fascination to lure scholar or saint. The seductions of the ecstasies of the thoughts of the powerful are not hailed in my poetry All the historically created light is paleness for me… my senses don’t bloom to their metaphors of the first rains etc. My poems do not encourage those pretenses of the clothed bodies Life tells… it exposes the rhythms of life’s cruel denials. From the toiling bodies of my people my poetry spills forth sounds …cries of new life. Indudhara Honnapura (Kannada Dalit thinker and writer) Trans: Sushumna Kannan ‘Aa’ ‘aa’ and When I opened my eyes and moved my limbs: in the dark caves of my avva’s eyes burned the hearth. Surrendering his dark body to fire appa breathed a modest beedi while the gruel on the h