Farmers from Tamil Nadu staged a protest in 2017 against farmer suicides Farmers from Tamil Nadu staged a protest in 2017 against farmer suicides

She Was Told!wjevo

She was toldNot to wear a blouseTo allow every maleWatch her as a device.She was toldTo bend her back, not walk straightTo fill the tender tummies, keeping herself a bait.She was toldTo toil all day long in the fieldsAs a human machineDeprived of food and water.She was toldTo swallow the pain of not feeding her babyThough her lactating breasts pine to sate its hunger.She was toldTo take the insults, jeers, beatings and assaults,For being born a woman, in a cursed clan.She was toldTo take the daily thousand cutsOf sexist remarks, acts and assaultsOf her man and master.She was toldThat she is bad omen.A bloody sanitary pad, useful but a disgusting topic.The relentless sun beats oh herHer dreams, beauty and youthSacrificed in the service of the land, the hut, the master.Her eyes two dry hollows bear silent witnessTo hundreds of deaths of her mothers, daughters, sistersTheir dreams, respect and their bodies.Her calloused hands, her unkempt hairHer cracked heels, her wrinkled hairTell the tales of living through fears and yearsOf centuries and millennia of violations and deaths.She was toldThat she was dirt,She was filth andIn this sacred land of thousands of goddessesShe is called a Dalit.

—Translated from Telugu by the poet

Aruna Gogulamanda, Telangana

(Aruna Gogulamanda is a Dalit woman poet from Telangana. She comes from a middle-class agricultural family, but has also closely observed women of Dalit ghettos while visiting her grandparents’ house. She weaves her poetry around Dalit women who had to face two-fold discrimination for being women and Dalits.)

What Age Has Taught Me: Silence

What age has taught me: silenceThe kind where you don’t speakEven when your house is on fire

We weren’t born into this.I still remember my parents urging meTo say the right words before presentingMe to my kindergarten teacherAnd as i grew olderThe words stopped

Why do you have to be so loudThe elders would sayWhy do you have to attack everything with wordsAs if you’re in the forest after darkAnd your words are arrows against the wolves?When will this stopWe never raised our voicesEven when they took away our landsAnd put us on a trainTo the city with a thousand othersWho looked like us but weren’tIf we didn’t why should you?

So you stay silent.You let them put people around you on trains.They might look like youBut they aren’t your people,Someone reminds you.

And you stay silentTill you can’t and when you do speakWhen you sayThey are my people justAs i am theirs

They call you a criminal too.

Nilesh Mondal, West Bengal

(Nilesh Mondal is a poet and an engineering student from Asansolwjevo, West Bengal. He has worked with popular web platforms and his poems have been published in various magazines and journals.)

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