Poems Remembering Ambedkar And Comrade Lawrence

Through 100 pages of 'Poetry as Evidence', Outlook presents a selection of poems and verses that have moved us, and we feel these serve as evidence of our bleak times and lives. The poems below are the 44th and 45th from the series.

Outlook Web Desk

Updated on: 13 January 2024 8:45 am

Muslim women stage a protest against CAA and NRC at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi in 2022

Ambedkar

1.
In between the border
Of my memories and longings,
I stand there like a refugee
Nowhere to arrive, no where to stand
I re-read, re-imagine you and,
I write myself as a beautiful tragedy

2.
I want to write about silence
That comes from suppression
Of history, of feelings, of dream
Of generations.
And i fail to write because language fails me disgustingly,
It is the language with which our existence was erased.
How do we write stories of silence in a language that never heard
By your ‘touchable’ ears?

3.
For several centuries
I was untouched, by your flesh
And by languages you created
To erase me, to invisibalise me;
How do i suppose to translate myself
In your languages which erased me
In your flesh for which i was
An untouchable?
At what historical point now
I became a language in which
You seek an asylum to be guilt free?

Yogesh Maitreya, Maharashtra

(Yogesh Maitreya is a Bahujan poet, cultural critic, and a translator who uses his Instagram page to talk about caste, love, and discrimination. A PhD scholar at TISS, Mumbai, he has published three books, and is also the founder of Panther’s Paw Publication, which publishes only Dalit Bahujan authors.)

Thotti

To Comrade M M Lawrence, who
had organised Thottis of Kochi in
the beginning of the 1950s

He stood in the bowels of Kochi
with a tin full of shit
Who are you
The past century asked
I am the son of Eshakki, Kuppyandi
He humbly replied

The world decreed
You are the Thotti, the lower caste, born sinner, the untouchable
Even the sight of you is inauspicious

The disciple Velayudhan
Asked Nanu guru:
Is Thotti brahmam?
The Guru replied:
Thotti is brahmam,
The shit too is brahmam.

At the boat jetty, Gandhi declared
The stink coming from Thotti
Is not from his shit
It is from yours.
At that moment Kochi’s jaundiced earth
Spread its heavy tortured legs
Muttered and
Gave birth to Lawrence chettan

He pulled out a red flag from its navel
Raised it and walked its streets
Putting a hand on Kuppyandi’s shoulder
Lawrence chettan called out:
Comrade.

For the first time
He raised his eyes from the bowels of hell
Looked up from the shit to the sky

The Sun left embers in his eyes

Kuppyandi’s brood
Still roam in Kochi
Today, they remove the corporation’s waste

Lawrence chettan is now past 90
On a bed of nails
He waits to meet his Maker

—Translated from Malayalam by A Nathan

Balachandran Chullikkad, Kerala

(Balachandran Chullikkad is an Indian poet, orator, lyricist and actor in Malayalam-language media. His collection of poems includes Pathinettu Kavithakal, Amaavaasi, Ghazal, Maanasaantharam and Dracula.)