A Brahmin Forgets his Hymn
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I would not like to be associated with those who advocate that even census should be on caste line, yet while writing a poem I chose the topic from the caste quagmire. It is common sense that poverty could be anywhere, even in a Brahmin household. Many of our ancient stories used to start something like this: Once there lived a poor brahmin who used to go to village for begging alms...
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A Brahmin Forgets his Hymn
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A Brahmin
forgets his hymn...
When finds his three unemployed sons
plodding along the hungry bylanes
chasing the elusive urban employment,
When finds his daughter pale and pondering
educated, groomed homely, wearied at thirty
miles away from her indispensable wedlock,
When the sharecropper vengefully ruins
his ancestral paddy land of infertile acre
by his wanton step-fatherly neglect,
When his ageing wife sobs in silence
lamenting her birth as a woman
her lost life in drudgery and chores,
When his bed-ridden father
curses his unworthy son
desperate for a few pills of painkiller,
When his ritual fasts
end up in ulcerous hunger
before his stone gods fond of flowers,
When the generous god-fearing devotees
throw a ten paise-coin each
on a sacred brass plate in melting gestures,
When a corn on his naked heel
perpetrates excruciating pain on hot sand
of the lonely sizzling village lane,
When his perforated faded cloth cover
on his quarter century-old umbrella
bequeathed to him by his glorious ancestors
fails to prevent the meddlesome rainwater,
And the Brahmin
forgets his hymn,
salutes an officer in solemn sincerity
unmindful of his unnecessary ancestry
while dragging his feet out of the temple
to ask for a hundred rupees loan
for the day's ration...
And thus the Brahmin
forgets his hymn
of high-sounding Sanskrit
and hollow-sounding rhymes.
PORT BLAIR
21 /03 /97
-------------------------------------By
A. N. Nanda
Coimbatore
05-01-2012
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Labels: In Harness: my old poems
posted by The Unadorned | 9:11 AM
6 Comments:
Thanks.
This Poem really depicts the present scenario. When hungry starts all will be out whatever it maybe is the main crux here. Poverty changes the social order into its maximum extent is the theme of this heart melting poem.
Earlier I read your Poem “ Mother” translated from Oriya and I tried to translate into TAMIL in the name of “AMMA”. I felt very much that it reflects my mother. Many of my friends enjoyed very much the English version rather than my Tamil translation. But I really understood that poems are the children of hearts and not from mouth or hand. Thank god for his creation of mankind who can able to enjoy and create poems and I believe that a poet can change the world with his weapon of poems and not with any arms or ammunition.
-------------- N.Subramanian Tirupur
Thanks Ns, I'll send the feedback to the original poet in Orissa. Truth be told, the poet is a postal assistant in CPMG's office in Bhubaneswar who has three poetry collections to his credit. He writes wonderful poems. I just liked it and translated. My gesture made him so happy that he made me talk to her mother in whose honour he had written the poem. These are memorable moments for poets, when its original form reaches its readers or its translated/transcreated form.
Sir,
The customs and rituals are mingled with the search of bare necessities of life and piles of tensions are added to it bring tears in eyes. How helpless a bread earner is depicted nicely here.
Very interesting. The caste system should change in India. No point dragging something that hampers human relations.
Yes Salu. It should go...but then again there's attempt at caste census too.
Thanks for dropping by my site.
A N Nanda
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