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NIRMALA
PUTUL
If you were in my place
Just
think
if
you were in my place
and
I in yours
how
would you feel?
How
would you feel
if
your village stood in the lowlands of distant hills
and
you lived in huts of grass and straw
right
next to oxen, cows, goats and chickens and pigs
the
anxious light of lamps about to flicker out?
Forced
to see the faces of
children
whimpering from hunger
how
would you feel?
How
would you feel
if
you had to bring your children
mouthfuls
of water
from
a spring
flowing
miles away
or
your wife, to light the house-stove
was
forced to gather firewood
and
bring it from the jungle
and
you, to keep house and home
had
to break rocks
or
spread coal-tar on the road?
Or
even, early in the morning
had
to haul bundles of firewood on your rickety wreck of a bicycle?
just
to manage to get basics like salt or oil?
What
would you feel
if
you saw your child running behind
herds
of cows and goats,
and
some other kid,
book
bag on his shoulder,
going
off to school?
Just
think, what would you feel
if
I sat there squarely on a chair, instead of you
sipping
tea with a couple of friends
and
you stood by yourself in front of me,
your
hands clutched politely
begging
for some work,
wheedling
and whining
in
your sick little language?
So
tell me how you’d feel
when
someone’s hand pats your back
and
suddenly starts measuring the flesh on your body
or
the focus of a camera that wants to take your picture
ignoring
your starved lips, centres on the fullness of your breasts?
Just
think
even
a little while, but think
that
if in a line, you were the very last
and
I stood at the front of the line,
then
how would you feel?
And
something else –
how
would you feel
if
you were black and your nose was flat,
the
soles of your feet full of cracks?
and
because of this
someone
cracked a joke and burst out laughing
then
how would you feel?
Translated from the Santali original by
Arlene Zide with Pramod Kumar Tiwari and the poet.
Mountain
Woman
A bundle of dried wood on her head,
she
comes down the hill
Mountain woman
will go straight to the bazaar
and selling all her wood,
will quench the fire of the entire
family’s hunger.
Hanging on her back,
a child wrapped in a sheet
Mountain woman, planting paddy
planting her mountain of grief
for a blossoming crop of happiness
Breaking apart the stones of the
mountain, she’s breaking
mountainous rituals and taboos.
Weaving mats on the mountains
passing her mountainously long day
She makes brooms
weapons to fight filth
Piercing the knot of her hair with a
flower
She is piercing someone’s heart
She runs after the cows and goats, her
feet
inscribe in the earth
hundreds of her innocent maiden songs
Translated
from the Santali original by Aruna Sitesh and Arlene Zide in consultation with
Nirmala Putul
Mountain
Man
Mountain-like body
Mountain-like chest
Mountain-like complexion
Sitting brooding on the mountain
The face of the mountain man shows
The geography of the mountain
Within him hushed sits
The history of the mountain
When there’s a fire on the mountain
Then, form his flute springs
The pain of the mountains.
When a mountain somewhere is torn
apart
His mountain-like chest shudders
He speaks to the mountain in mountain
language
Shares his joys and sorrow
Sitting on the mountain, sings
mountain-songs
Writes on the mountain in mountain
script
– “m” is for mountain
Honing the blade of his axe on the
mountain
He’s sharpening up the dulled numbness
of what’s lodged inside him
Translated
from the Santali original by Aruna Sitesh and Arlene Zide in consultation with
Nirmala Putul and PK Tiwari
