By Kalyani Thakur Charal I leave behind these marshes and jungles, The people of the jungle, Leave behind the river The forest trail Far away to my own people Who shed blood and sweat I go To the malnourished children Of our fallen,battered forefathers, To my brothers and sisters I shall leave behind this land Of four rivers and five settlements Stretched out beside the blacksmith’s furnace I have ...
By Devanoora Mahadeva Translated from Kannada by Susan Daniel Odalala Odalala literally means the depth of ones being. Translated it could mean – From Hunger, From a hut here and a hut there – that sent up smoke signals – the clacking of cooking pots rose and fell, stopping at Sakavva’s ears, like an invitation. Sakavva called to Shivu. When ...
By Devanoora Mahadeva Translated from Kannada by Susan Daniel Kusumabale Ah la la – lah! how it shook and bumped, Turamma’s hut, palm-leaf thatch and all else; and following Turamma’s gesturing hands, Eery’s hands working, as they did now – grinding spices and masala. To the smells that rose from there dank smells of floors just washed and ...
By Devanoora Mahadeva These nights they’re here; those nights they’ve gone. These days they are here; those days they’ve gone. They are a-coming-coming and a-going. And too, that old woman who sells greens and herbs for a living that ripe old fisherwoman-her name’s Singaramma and at the place where Channa-Kusuma met, she sits not without rising and all that Singaramma once ...
By Devanoora Mahadeva And Kusuma so … Channa’s mother, who sat glued to the door of her hut (that hadn’t seen lime or colour wash not even for the fire walking festival), had her eyes turned to her husband. Her husband sat where he always did. ‘What now,’ she said. The exact same expression of ‘what now’ in ...- By Urmila Pawar Armour Ever since she woke up early in the morning, Indira’s mouth clanked like a wristful of bangles. She kept spurting anger at Gaurya. She beat him. Shouted at him. Angrily she asked him, “But why? Why don’t you want me to go to the market to sell mangoes, unh? Tell me, what happened?” But ...
By Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih U Manik Raitong ** This story first appeared in “Around the Hearth: Khasi Legends” published by Penguin India, New Delhi, in 2007. The copyright is mine. ** U Manik Raitong, or Manik the Wretched— also famed as the archetypal lover and the dispenser of the tradition of love and music in Khasi society— lived, sometime ...
By Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih Good Versus Evil Friends, kindred spirits, civilized people all… I’m not here to defend evil or the Taliban. “Behind the Veil” has exposed them as a weird breed raising sabres against beards and TVs, ankles and artefacts: a savage breed turning stadia into arenas of blood, and doubtless, given a free hand, will execute their way back to the Stone ...
By Joopaka Subhadra The collection, Rayakka Manyam contains vignettes of different aspects of Dalits. We are exposed to the cruelties of the system, be it on the life of the Dakkalis, or of the Madigas, or of the people in the villages, or of the uneducated, or of the educated, or of the government employee. Subhadra attacks ...
By Jupaka Subhadra Avva: A Slab at the Doorway Avva, my mother she is not a wick-lamp protected in the ledge of a wall she is the sun that went astray in sky’s rug she is the famine in the stretched out sari-end* of the mother earth Avva she is a timeless full moon, the embodiment of struggle sans dawn. Her head placed in ...
By Des Raj Kali Translation by NEETI SINGH Tadaksaar: Daybreak In every house there lives a buddhi rooh – old female spirit. Her white tresses – hoary and dishevelled. Gleaming in the lines of her face, red eyes with threads. Ears torn. Earrings dangling at the edge. Her visage, sometimes wilted, lacklustre, and sometimes ...
