Lucky
You are born rich
To say in your language
``Born with silver spoon in the mouth''
Your agitation sounds creative
Our agony looks violent
You are meritorious
You can break glass of buses
In a shape
As symmetric as Sun rays
You can deflate the tires
With artistic �lan
While indulgent police look on
With their jaws rested on rifle butts
You can tie `Rakhis'
Even in
The dark chambers
Of a police station
You do not buy bus ticket
Not because
Your pocket is empty
That is practical protest
The beautiful roads
Are all yours
Whether you do a `Rasta Roko'
Or drive vehicles with `save merit' stickers
We are bare-footed
Sweat-stinking road rollers
What if we built the roads?
The merit of plan is yours
The credit of contract is also yours
Those exhilarating sixty days, what fun!
When your cute little girls
And their daredevil mates
Were going on a delectable rampage,
Everybody was delighted
Parents, their parents
Brothers and sisters
Even the servants
And reporting Newspapers?
Oh, absolutely thrilled!
Boys and girls
Hand in hand
In protest
Of buried merit and dashed future
Going off to a picnic
O Yaar,
How heroic!
You are the marathoners
In merit competition
Poor tortoises
Can we run with you?
If
You serve ``Chair'' in Chikkadpalli
Sell ``pallies'' in cinema hall
Polish boots in Kothi Circle
Stop a Maruti or Priya on the Tankbund
To demand agitation fund
Well
Media persons are `merit' creatures
Their camera hearts `click'
Their pens shriek,
``Youthful brilliance''!
We are drab faced duds
Sitting in the stink of dead animals
We make shoes
By applying color with our blood
And polishing them
With the sinking light of our eyes
However,
Isn't the shine different
When polished
By someone in boots?
We clean up your filth
Carry the night soil on our heads
We wear out our bodies
Washing your rooms
To make them sparkle
Like your scented bodies
We sweep, we clean; our hands are brooms
Our sweat is water
Our blood is the phenyl
Our bones are washing powder
But all this
Is menial labor
What merit it has?
What skill?
Tucked-in shirts and miniskirts
Jeans and high heels
If you sweep
The cement road with a smile
It becomes an Akashvani scoop
And spellbinding Doordharshan spectacle
We are
Rickshaw pullers
Porters and cart wheelers
Petty shopkeepers
And low grade clerks
We are
Desolate mothers
Who can give no milk
To the child who bites with hunger
We stand in hospital queues
To sell blood to buy food
Except
For the smell of poverty and hunger
How can it acquire
The patriotic flavor
Of your blood donation?
Whatever you do
Sweep, polish
Carry luggage in railway station
Or in bus stand
Vend fruits on pushcart
Sell chai on footpath
Take out procession
With `Save merit' placards
And convent pronunciations
We know
It is to show us that
Our labor of myriad professions
Is no match to your merit
White coats and black badges
Hanging over chiffon saris and Punjabi dresses
`Save merit' stickers
On breasts carrying `steth's (stethoscopes)
When you walk(ed) in front of daftar
Like a heaven in flutter
For EBCs among you
And those who crossed 12000 among us
The reservation G.O.
Is not only a dream shattered and heaven shaken
But also a rainbow broken
Yours
Is movement for justice
On the earthly heaven
That is why
`Devathas' dared more for the amrit
The moment
You gave a call for `jail bharao'
In the press conference
We were shifted out
Frombarracks
To rotting dungeons
Great welcome was prepared
Red carpet was spread
(`Red' only in idiom; the color scares even those who spread it.)
We waited with fond hope that
The pious dust of your feet
Would grace not only the country
But its jails, too
How foolish!
The meritorious cream
The future
Of country's glorious dream
How can they come
To the hell of thieves,
Murderers and subversives?
We read and rejoice
That function halls
Where rich marriages are celebrated
Became your jails
Ours may be a lifelong struggle till death
But yours is a happy wedding party of the wealth
If you show displeasure
It is like a marriage tiff
If you burn furniture
It is pyrotechnical stuff
If you observe `bandh'
It is the landlord's daughter's marriage
Lucky
The corpse of your merit
Parades through the main streets
Has its funeral in `chourastas'
Amidst chanting of holy `mantras'
But Merit has no death
So
You creatively conduct symbolic procession
And enact the mourning `prahasan'
In us
To die or to be killed
There is no merit
We die
With hunger, or disease,
Doing hard labor, or committing crime,
In lock up or encounter
(Meritorious will not agree inequality is violence)
We will be thrown
By a roadside;
In a filthy pit;
On a dust heap;
In a dark forest
We will turn ash
Without a trace
We will `miss'
Froma hill or a hole
Our births and deaths
Except for census statistics,
What use they have
For the national progress?
We take birth
And perish in death
In and due to
Miserable poverty
You assume the `Avatar'
When Dharma is in danger
And renounce the role
After completing the job
You are the `sutradhar'
You are lucky
You are meritorious!!
- Vara Vara Rao
Since the poem is not mine...
I can not dedicate to anyone...
but i found a loophole!LOL!
This post is dedicated to the
conscience of every
YOUTH FOR (un)EQUALITY protester! - Chella
We have not created this as our themesong..
too poor to add music to it!
the only background music is
the RHYTHM OF OUR HEART!
Will your deaf ears ever listen!? -Chella
Thanks Ms Lara Jesany for sending me this "socially creative" work.
Related Readings
14 comments:
Great Work with human touch. Kudos to to the poet VV Rao
who wrote this has no conscience. young people in India have taken to the streets for a rightful fight after 50 years and what does this guy do?..splits them in the middle.
why don't the creamy layer dissociate themselves from reservations when they are meant to be for downtrodden. because they don't want to leave the benefits. and they have to be kicked out. and that's what these guys are fighting for.
If you can support them in anyway you are supporting all the downtrodden people who have never been benefitted by reservations before..yeah I am talking abt. all those rickshaw pullers,cobblers and sweepers who were mentioned.
Poverty is no problem in India. No poor Brahmin has revolted against a rich Brahmin. In a Brahmin institution, its owner, always employs poor Brahmins, his own jatwalas, to see that the employees do not revolt. There is no trade union of poor Brahmins against the rich Brahmin employer.
Class solidarity: There is nothing like class solidarity of the poor. In Bombay textile mills, upper caste mill workers went on strike against their own Dalit colleagues employed in the weaving section.
A "class" is temporary but "caste" is permanent. There is no promotion or demotion in a caste society.
Poverty is not permanent. It can change any time as many Dalit-Backwards have become rich in the last 30 years.
But caste is permanent. It never changes. A born Dalit dies as Dalit even if he becomes rich. In every village of Punjab Dalits have their separate burials. Caste fixes your place — not poverty.
In "Hindu India" poverty yardstick makes no sense.
A very inspiring poem.Thanks.
A great poem indeed. I do not see how this is relevant to the current ongoing public debate. Do you mean to say that only "backward caste" people are so poor and the upper caste people are so rich. The Contractors/Students etc which you have mentioned in the above poem also consists of both Upper Caste / Backward caste people. Time and again i have been repeating the word caste though i hate to mention it. Let me remind you that the current ongoing debate is "How are reservations benefitting the really Oppressed". Have you done any survey / do have any statistics figuring out how many "real needy/oppressed/ poor" poeple are benefitting from Reservations. Do you also know that there are many poor people in India who are not even aware of these Reservations. It is only well bred people from towns and cities are are making merry with these reservations. Look at the shitting politics in TN where some communites are calling themselves as OBC/B/MBC just to avail the fruits of reservation thus denying chance to the real needy/oppressed student communities. Some wealthy communities in TN are bearing all the fruits of these Reservations. No one can revolt against these fearing vote bank politics. TN is the most corrupt state. I had some respect for Chella when i was first going through his blogs. Now i believe he has become a selfish man and wants to lay flyovers for his fellow rich bretheren. Looks like he is a real hypocrite. He only shows statistics that there are no Dalit owned companies listed in BSE/NSE and comes up with shocking figures. But had the reservations have been rightfully carried, then even after 50 yrs why do we have so much poverty/oppression amongst fellow people.
Reservation might be a good idea for the upliftment of the downtrodden should this program be carried out with much thought/care and devotion. Only Some communities are benefitting from this and they are getting richer and richer.
Look at the stunning statistics from TN/AP and other southern states.
http://us.rediff.com/money/2006/jun/22quota.htm?q=tp&file=.htm
Chella. I appreciate your creativity here
We have not created this as our themesong..too poor to add music to it!the only background music isthe RHYTHM OF OUR HEART!Will your deaf ears ever listen!? -Chella
No words to praise you. Do you mean to say that only "backward caste" people are tooooooooooo poor in our country. Only forward caste people are tooooooooo rich in our country. I could show you many communities in OBC/BC which are much wealthier than forward castes. Especially this is more in TN.
I have utmost sympathy for the downtrodden but not for those who are hypocrites and dwelling under the shelter of Back ward Castes just to enjoy the fruits.
Your poem is disgusting.. You are simply getting emotional about any random being comparing them with your pathetic self.. you and ppl who think like you arnt fit to become anything in life.. your poem makes 0 sense.. You mentally lower caste, you,re worsening the situation.. the country is sinking thanx to you and your pro reservationist pals.. im sure u guys wont lift a finger to really help the actual down trodden of the country.. your mentality stinks.. you may succeed now,in the long run wherever u land up always remember you've cheated to get there..
typical left lunatic perspective.
the poor obcs dont get good education.the rich obcs get all
benefits.poor obc sells in
traffic junctions risking
limb and life, rich obc travels
in fancy cars and gets reservation.
the left lunatics have abandonded
marx and have become mandalists.
@sonline
We all know that majority of the people of India can be easily hoodwinked by short terms gains. The current breed politicians are never going to do anything constructive to improve their lot because once they are educated and well informed, they are never going to vote for them.
In any case, majority opinion is not always the right opinion. If some politician says that everybody would get a salary without doing any work, majority of the Indian population would agree without even looking at its practical implementation. But do you say that it is right? It is the duty of the ruling party to be responsible and not just play vote-bank politics which unfortunately is not being done. This is where the educated youth of India has to come in.
u mind is backword.
Too much of emotions but too less of intellect.
Good use of words but bad use of thoughts.
Wake up. Understand and analyse before giving an opinion and never be biased.
Wait. I neither advocate for nor against reservation. But I only against ur biased approach
I love Varavara Rao and his poems,His Two Daughters who were Doctors Killed by police in this moment for people.If u read his poems in telugu it is like Honey after Gurram Joshua.Krishna Vemulapalli said correct about creamy layers. Many SC/St/OBC enjoying the status after attaining to the creamy layer they should leave it to the down traden.
Beautiful poem. Keep up the good work and post more like this.
Please dont get upset by the venomous comments of these brahminical scoundrels - after all, Mao said "To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing but a good thing!"
Dear V V Sir Touching and apt writing My Office colleagues also read this poem accepted as a well poem
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