SHADES OF SIN

Subject: SHADES OF SIN Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:34 am

DALIT (Marathi for 'Broken to pieces')
Apr. 01, 2007 at 12:43 PM

I had my Sociology board exam on the 7th of April, and I was browsing through the chapter on 'Deprived Groups'. Under the Scheduled Castes section, it said "DALIT: as the untouchables prefer to call themselves, is a Marathi term that literally means 'Broken To Pieces'". Poetry jumped out at me as an image of a man creeping out of his home in the dark of the night, erasing his footsteps behind him in the fear of being banished from a village where he is already out-caste recreated in my mind. And pretty obviously I couldn't restrain myself from commenting....

DISCLAIMER
I cannot claim my own child mine
For his own good, he's better orphaned
Let him not know his father lived
Disgraced, hidden in his own shadows

I hope my child could understand
Why I did not give him my name
Why I would not ask him to follow
Footsteps which I erase away

May no one question who's his mother
As if they care where she lies raped
Polluted, contaminated; her body
"Cleansed" by the "pure-blood" as they say...

Subject: Re: SHADES OF SIN Mon Jun 25, 2007 7:29 pm

August, 2004

Everyone must watch Parzania, they’ll appreciate this one more after the movie…

In the face of tragedy in our country, there’s no more worth of ones life than mere flesh and bones... adds to our garbage disposal problem u see! With relatives unable to identify kins' bodies with more than charred fingers and pieces of burnt clothing; nothing can be more shameful than to not even have your funeral rites performed with dignity... this is India today:

RIOT

Blending with the rhythm;
Of skipped heartbeats,
Comes the muffled sound;
Of slacken defeat.

Blemishing the azure,
The colour of the sky;
Crimson-coloured blood.
Ear-piercing cry.

Another conflagration;
Engulfs a handful hearths.
And yet another widow,
To an orphan gives birth.

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