MARSAL HEMBRAM
Then I must pick up my bow
You tell me, screaming,
that this nurtured plot of land,
this pond, this farmhouse
you tell me, these are not mine?
You order me, with blazing eyes,
to leave all this
and go away
wherever – anywhere at all.
But this was the land of legends,
the land of thick jungles,
a desolate land of trees and vines.
We worked hard to clean it up
to make it livable
and lived happily.
Now you claim
that this nurtured plot of land,
this pond, this farmhouse
these are not mine
then, well,
I must reach for my bow and arrow.
Translated from the Santali original by Antara Dev Sen and the poet
