poems of koshal panwar

Koshal Panwar

( Note: ‘kurdi’is a local word which means the enclosure for pigs.)

Life
Tanslation: RK Shukla

I’ve lived life
watching those whose hands held brooms
who covered their heads with tattered scarves
whose tunics were all patches
whose feet clung to worn out slippers
that would part any moment like a dismayed sweet-heart.

I’ve lived my life
watching those hands that worked endlessly
they taught me to work hard to survive
to hold burning rods in my hands
and remain calm
and watch helplessly
my blistered boiled hands
without uttering a sigh or caressing my wounds

I’ve lived my life with those
who taught me to reverse the course of time
and seek account from that system
that chained us thus

I did not care for those
who did all they could to block my way
who forbad me from touching the pitcher
and pour water
for my scorching throat
who commanded me to choose
between begging and thirsting

I have lived my life
watching my mother my aunt
carrying on their heads basket- full filth
to throw at kurdi for pigs to feed on
and then a bowl in their hands
cringing before their masters
for crumbs of stale bread for her whining child

I’ve lived life
seeing my father my uncles
working as bonded labours
during bone-freezing cold
in the zamindar’s lands
fearing the lash of hi lathi on their backs

I have lived life
seeing my father
heating tarcoal
in the scorching sun
stirring it in huge cauldrons with wooden ladels
as mother stirred the boiling rice
in her earthen pots
his own inner being all in flames.



(2)

Bhangi Women

Lifting the night soil basket
to her knees,then to her chest
and finally to her head
the bhangi woman suffers crucifixion
every day for being a bhangi woman
the basket drips
faeces trickling down
on her face her tunic
she wipes it with her saree
mindful no one peers at her body
in the open market-place

the bhangi woman
reaches the kurdi
stops for a moment
her eyes filled with remorse
her mind abuzz with thoughts
why,I’m worse than urine and night soil
blessed are they seated on my head
and me, bhangi woman!
cleaning urine and night soil
carrying this filth on her head
performing the last rites of that system
that prides itself for being civilized
cursing it calling it names
roaring grunting at it
seeking recompense from it
for her centuries old ordeals
setting out to wrest from it
her share of the open sky usurped by it.

Beware,o you usurpers of my open sky
look,look!they are marching,the bhangi women
no longer brooms in their hands
but guns instead.