The Dalit Woman Speaks

A Dalit woman I was born In a hamlet Made from bamboo and mud walls So small and dingy Just to cover up, Thatched with straw And haystacks and dry palm leaves. When a girl, I used to go half-fed, half-clothed In a country raked by Heat and dust, summer and winter With the heat wave taking a toll, Cold wave shivering us with, Under the cool tree shade We used to pass time, Used to take water from the water body. A Dalit woman I, I used to see the father coming drunk, Having taken spurious wine And other extracts, Quarelling Without food, without room, Without books and hair oil and others A Dalit woman I Saw I the poor country When grew I up. Food was not, Water not, Pots and utensils were earthen, The oven too was earthen Made burn with dry leaves Smoking badly And you tired of puffing into a blaze, Nothing to eat, Nothing to drink, Even the sling bamboo cot was not. Slept I on the muddy floor Sometimes made way into Or encroached upon by the scorpion And the vipers And taking the name of The Snake God and the Goddess We used to sleep Without the fan and the light, The dingy hut without ventilation. In the morning Before the sun flashing We used to awake and arise And go to the pond or the riverside And after coming from, We used to clean the muddy floor With water, mud and dung mixed paste And there was nothing as tea, Even the stale food was not in our fate. A poor girl of a poor father, A Dalit girl from some Dalit house, I saw poverty, underdevelopment, Illiteracy, witch-hunting, Backwardness, superstition From close quarters, How did they go about for witch-hunting, Telling of ghosts and witchcrafts And ostracizing? At dawn break we used to leave for the fields Taking the cattle to, Driving away hens, Sheep and small cows if any To graze them, With nothing to support In an agrarian India, Rural and rustic India Of villagerly people, Blind and superstitious people. There was no provision for food To be made at night As the light was not, We had the date-leaf mat to sleep on, Living in a cottage Under the sun and the moon In the midst of Nature And the men villagerly With the blunt and foolish people As village elders opining. My life After helping my mother, Making the younger brtothers and sisters Grow up From my early childhood, Where have I not worked, As a farm woman, a dung collector, A house cleaner, a care taker?