At a recent workshop for south Indian Adivasi writers, Werner Soors (of Les Petit Roberts fame) wrote this poem rather spontaneously based on a brainstorm of potential themes of interest for writing. He set it to a blues rhythm on his Ukulele and even sang it but meanwhile the English text of the song of which a crude Kannada translation is ongoing.
Continue readingSociologist and activist Abhay Xaxa has written this poem that I found deeply illuminating for many privileged folks like myself who work with Adivasi communities. Since the poem in English is not accessible to many of my Kannada-speaking colleagues & collaborators, with help from Latha Chilgod, we produced a crude Kannada translation of the poem. A dream to set it to tune in Kannada one day, perhaps with help from some of the amazing Adivasi musicians here in Chamarajanagar…one day….meanwhile, below is our Kannada translation and further down is the original in English that I believe was first published in Roundtable India.
Continue readingContinue readingWhose son you are
Whose you’re not
Daughter not by any
Coupling double Xs
The neighbourhood, The house
the hand that rocked the cradle
the hand that didn’t
love that wasn’t
The unfair social embellish
Over one’s random gene bounty
For one brings luck
For another just muck
Thanks to GSK & ASM for sharing this with me.