Which Language should I Speak?
Chewing totters in the badlands
My grandapa,
The permanent resident of my body,
The household of tradition heaped on his back,
Hollers at me,
‘you whore-son, talk like we do. Talk, I tell you!’
(Excerpt, Translated by Priya Adarkar)
The life we live
If you were to live the life we live
Then out of you would poems arise.
We: kicked and spat at for our piece of bread.
You: fetch fulfillment and name of the Lord.
We: down-gutter degraders of our heritage.
You: its sole repository, descendants of the sage.
We: never have a paisa to scratch our arse.
(Excerpt, Translated by Gauri Deshpande)
