B.A English Literature
3rd Year 6th Semester
Elective Paper – BEN-DSE2C
Literatures from the Margin
UNIT-1: Poetry
1.2
“Hunger”– Nam Deo Dhasal
About
Author:
Namdeo
Laxman Dhasal (Namdev Dhasal) is a Marathi poet, writer and Human Rights
activist from Maharashtra, India. Dhasal was born on February 15, 1949, in a
village near Pune, India. A member of the previously called Mahar class, he
grew up in dire poverty. Following the example of the American Black Panther
movement, he founded the Dalit Panther with friends in 1972.
In
1973, he published his first volume of poetry, Golpitha. Dhasal’s poems broke
away from stylistic conventions. He included in his poetry many words and
expressions which only the Dalits normally used. Thus, in Golpitha he adapted
his language to that of the red light milieu, which shocked middle class
readers.
Dhasal
was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 for his achievements in Marathi literature.
He was conferred with the Maharashtra State Award for literature four times - in
1973, 1974, 1982 and 1983. The Sahitya Akademi also presented him with the
Golden Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. After a long debilitating battle
with colon cancer, Dhasal died in Mumbai at the age of 64 on 15 January 2014.
About
Poem:
Starvation
of innocent human beings by the people of high class, devoid of basic
necessities of food, clothes and shelter mould the spirit of movement,
revolution begins to take roots as a protest against suppression of the poor by
the brutal mankind for their own identity. Dalit Poetry outcries the feelings
of the untouchables. Namdev Dhasal’s poem ‘Hunger’ talks about the realistic
portrayal of the people who have been suffering since long.
Summary:
The
poem ‘Hunger’ deals with the denial of a right to life. As Dalits had
historically sacrificed their dignity at the altar of the caste based society,
their bodies have become objects and toys of systematic societal caste
persecutions. Dhasal personifies hunger which is a constant feature in the
lives of the people of the depressed classes regardless of their immense hard work.
The poet asks hunger to forgive him and his people as they are weak and cannot
dare to suffer the tricks played by hunger. Poet feels defeated by hunger and
asks it to leave his people, as if they accept and preserve it, everything will
turn dark in their lives.
Poem:
Hunger
Unable to do this ione thing and
able
To solve or not solve theorems
Will hunger –fires forge a poem?
Will music die in the fire of
hunger?
How difficult music is
To him who cannot count the best
of his own pulse.
Who hadn’t thought that fees
couldn’t be claimed
For singing songs of hunger.
Hunger
A fruitless thing
However hard you work
The reward is still stones
If stones cannot build a house
We’ll not manage to live in it.
Hunger you are mouse, cat, lion
in turn
How long can mere mortals like us
stand
I this game that you’ve set up?
2.
Hunger
a shrewd peace is growing
everywhere
this is the beginning of our new
life sentence
hunger forgive us that we cannot
cut the tree of time
but even cut, the sky will still
be blue.
To which market can we carry dumb
hearts?
Where auction them
Where day sweeps life
Who will buy crushed hearts
Who will profit by the deal?
Hunger, tell us your game, your
strategy
If we can muster guts enough
We’ll fight you to the finish
Can’t crawl and grovel on our
stomachs
Too long with you
How much can we wash the grime
off hunger?
How much wash the dust off years?
How much scorn to the very ends
of scorn?
Hunger, if a bridge of iron will
not join you to us
Then let us fly free like
unfettered birds
Hunger, your land , the thorns
upon your land,
Fester in the brain all night
Till the brain itself freezes.
Hunger, when a thing is taken
from the fridge
Is it still fresh?
Hunger your every blood drop is
cold
Your every blood drop is mute
Order, let lightening course
through the guts
Order, let life get charged
Wounded seas and the long moans
of our demands
Hunger, say yes to our dreams
Don’t snuff out the orphan huts
upon the shore
We’ll see later
The gold-threaded struggle
Between the snail of pain and the
sea.
3.
Hunger
we have made our demand
let you need us
will we never grow?
Let us grow
The sun may blithely have
forgotten dawn
The river may blithely have
forgotten time
We wanted more from light
Than mere life
But light turned false.
Hunger,
We will not allow a column of
cloud to stand,
Indifferent, to our door
How much more can we thank
Pain the music in pain
If we have not made ourselves a
tidy life
What right do we have to quarrel
with the flowers?
How much can we excite pain
How much can we burn
How much can we catch the fire
that burns forever?
If our words find no expression
In this stream of sun
We’ll salute you like defeated
soldiers
Whoever said that every soldier
in the army
Fights like a man?
4.
Hunger,
There’s not a single grain in our
house today
not a single clever brain in our
house today
hunger
if one sings till the last light
of the innermost being
will it turn off hunger-light?
Hunger if one takes care of you
now
Will it darken?
Hunger, your style is your own
No other calamity comes our way
But you.
Hunger, if we cannot mate you
Cannot impregnate you
Our tribe will have to kill
itself
Hunger we have all the aces
Why talk of the songs of the
half-sexed jacks?
Here’s our manhood before you
now,
Let’s see who wins this round
You or we.
5.
Hunger
which came first, seed or tree?
Hunger you make things too
difficult
Hunger just tell us what breed
this monkey is
And if you can’t
Then we will screw
Seventeen generations of you
Hunger, you and your mother.
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