Community-safety
Even as we grapple with our lives
which flag has offered us life-enhancing rice-water!
But for the itching of words and
eating early the cold rice of previous night
we joined the meeting giving slogans of ‘long live’
and listened to your empty rhetoric.
Whoever resolutions’ knife-sharpness it is
slaughtered and scattered are our bodies!
Whatever be the colour of our kerchief
it becomes the hand-kerchief of upper castes.
our sickle is at work right from cock-crow
and our hammer broke boulders till evening;
but these joined his flag making us the victims.
But for this fellow, it is caste-safety always…
-Translated by
K. Damodar Rao, Associate Professor in English kakatiya University
1995
- "community-safety: implication is that in all political parties,
including the left parties, it is the domination of the upper caste people that is pervasive, and hence parties may vary, but exploitation, sometimes within or outside, remains the same."
