Let My Country Not Sink

Let My Country Not Sink
by Prof. Dr. Ram Krishna Singh
Where education leads to submissiveness, not self-respect where knowledge and acceptance depends on certificates where push-out is called drop-out Where repression breeds fear, powerlessness, alienation and marginalization where dependency, not self-sufficiency, perpetuates with helplessness where discontentment is the way of life and dignity is decried Where the system blames the victims to preserve status quo and the stream of reason is lost in narrow divisions Into that ever-widening hell of majority and minority O my God, let my country not sink in the new century

The Asians Dying

BY W. S. MERWIN

When the forests have been destroyed their darkness remains

The ash the great walker follows the possessors

Forever

Nothing they will come to is real

Nor for long

Over the watercourses

Like ducks in the time of the ducks

The ghosts of the villages trail in the sky

Making a new twilight

Rain falls into the open eyes of the dead

Again again with its pointless sound

When the moon finds them they are the color of everything

The nights disappear like bruises but nothing is healed

The dead go away like bruises

The blood vanishes into the poisoned farmlands

Pain the horizon

Remains

Overhead the seasons rock

They are paper bells

Calling to nothing living

The possessors move everywhere under Death their star

Like columns of smoke they advance into the shadows

Like thin flames with no light

They with no past

And fire their only future

Protest

Ella Wheeler Wilcox - 1850-1919

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To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and childbearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.

Therefore I do protest against the boast
Of independence in this mighty land.
Call no chain strong, which holds one rusted link.
Call no land free, that holds one fettered slave.
Until the manacled slim wrists of babes
Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee,
Until the mother bears no burden, save
The precious one beneath her heart, until
God’s soil is rescued from the clutch of greed
And given back to labor, let no man
Call this the land of freedom.

New Lesson from Old Book: Arun Kale

New Lesson from Old Book: Arun Kale

Kamal, start the Maha-arati
Rijia, start the Maha-namaj
Gautam, go to the Mukhia’s house
and feed the cows
David, fly pigeons,
Karim, mark the temples
Chhagan, mark the mosques
mark each other’s religion
mark each other’s caste
and hate each other
hurl stones on each other
bring stones, hurl them on.

Words:Waman Nimbalkar

Words:Waman Nimbalkar

Waman Nimbalkar

Words

Words it is that set aflame houses, homes, countries,

Men as well.

 Words extinguish even the fire

In men set aflame by words.

Where it not for words, the sparks of fire

Would not have fallen from men’s eyes,

Great floods of tears would not have flowed.

No one would have come near

Nor have gone far away

were it not for words.

Caste: Waman Nimbalkar

Caste: Waman Nimbalkar

Waman Nimbalkar

Caste

When I knew nothing, I knew

My caste was low.

The Patil had kicked my father,

Cursed my mother.

They did not even raise their heads.

But I felt this ‘caste’ in my heart.

When I climbed the steps to school

then too I knew my caste was low.

I used to sit outside, the others inside.

My skin would suddenly shiver with little thorns.

My eyes could not hold back the tears.

Our lips must smile when they cursed.

I don’t understand anything..

I heard this, I learnt that,

I became a man like a man.

Even now I don’t know…

How is caste? Where is it?

It isn’t seen so does it live inside the body?

All the questions float like smoke,

And the wick of thought is sputtering.

But when I knew nothing, then I knew

My caste was low.

Translated by  Graham Smith