Recently there was a news item in a national daily about a piece of wasteland outside a village being earmarked by the concerned State Government as a separate crematorium for the untouchables, because they are not being allowed by the higher-caste people living in the village to use the common crematorium. There is an irony hidden in the arrangements made by the law-enforcing authority. The following poem has been composed against that background.
by Ajit Kumar Das
When I came into this world,
I was carrying a stigma —
the birth mark of my origin.
It has stayed with me
through the avenues of life,
never got erased, rather shining
with its discriminatory purity.
The journey meanders along
a separate sidewalk hedged
by roads, lanes, bylanes,
trudging towards a wasteland
at the outskirts of the village,
now earmarked as ‘muktidham'*
for final release from the bondage.
*a separate crematory for untouchables