Roots

Khaja
Roots


I am looking back

Yes! Standing on the threshold of this twenty first century
I am looking back
I am fondling the scars of my pas injuries
By turning the pages of time one by one
Like reading Arabic books
Washing the worn out fossils of truth with tears
I am digging for my mother root

Breaking the rocks and mountains
I gave a shape to this earth and a passage to this water
without any laboratories and experiments
I was the primitive scientist who discovered that
rubbing two stones produces fire
from caves to huts
from signs to script
from tree to carved houses
I led the man by my little finger

I was the one who used burnt bricks in Kalibangan
I was the bloody Sindhu that flowed out of the massacre by horsed barbarians
I was the corpse of the orphan that shook Siddratha
I was the arama hung from Pushyamitra’s scared thread
it was me who could not recognize my changed face
day before yesterday a dasya yesterday a chandala
today as my millions of injuries are my witness I am a sayibu
in fact I am a dalit

when you entrusted me with the protection of village
I thought that was my livelihood
I could never imagine that you will burry me there itself
I thought it was true when you bluffed that caste discrimination
was to safeguard dharma
I could not think that you will banish me as an outcast
for your institutionalized selfishness
how many dark centuries…….how many bloody centuries?
Darkness all around…. blinding darkness…revenge…attack…
look here, only after this sayibu touched me on my shoulder
did my fear disappear

when these people with scared threads called me a demon
and attributed fangs horns and tails that I did not have
he came and declared me a human being
when the brahmins here closed the temple gates
he spread janimas in the masjid for me
when the dal eaters here closed their nose looking at me
badnamaz – he embraced me like the fragrance of perfume

I forgot my mother all these days
I forgot my blood forgot my roots
in a system where survival is impossible without brahmanisation
I too became a bearded Brahman and asked my elder brother to move away
considered my younger brother inferior….

but after this excavation after this rethinking
I am going to step in to my father’s house
I going to receive my parent’s heritage
by the Vedas that injured me all these years
by history
I am declaring that I belong to the majority
Though I am sayibu by religion I assert that a dalit by caste

Now I am marching to Delhi