Archives: Self-introduction by Neerav Patel

be my guest someday, sawarna [high caste hindu]. 

if you want to feel the pangs of woe

come in the guise of an untouchable.

see, yonder is the way to our village from the city.

avoid that tallest mansion – 

our young girls are seduced there customarily.

that landlord is the king of our village – 

he would not spare even a young bitch!

don’t ask for water from the public water-pots. 

do you know

how to drink water with the bowl of your palms?

and don’t ask for my address there –

somebody may call you names.

here live brahmans, 

            kanbis,

            kolis,

            potters, blacksmiths and others.

yes, cross that hillock beyond the boundary, 

and there appear huts buried under the tamarind trees,

or there may be two or three dogs licking bones. 

dark and half-clad bodies:

yes, sawarna, they are my kith and kin –

mother is roasting beef at home,

father is rinsing hides in the tanning-pit.

this is my uncle

tailoring a leather bag for kanbis.

sister-in-law is peeling the aval stems. 

and nanki has gone with a pitcher to fetch water from the tank.

that’s all, sawarna. 

don’t cover your nose with the scented handkerchief,

you may suffocate,

you may nauseate at the sight of squabbles. 

but see, 

here i am reading pablo neruda

lying on the charpai under the neem tree.

i feel some times a lone man myself

on this island of ours.

my father said, sawarna –

your hic-cup was cured by the salty waters of our tanning-pit

in your childhood.

we can love each other

if you can shed your orthodox skin.

come and touch, we will make a new world –

where there won’t be any

dust, dirt, poverty, injustice, oppression. 

by Neerav Patel, Burning At Both The Ends (Ahmedabad: Dalit Panthers, 1980)