Untouchable!

Yes; I’m like electricity

not accessible to your

cold touch

 

Untouchable!

Yes; I’m like the depth of the ocean

not accessible to the touch

of your searing eyes

 

Untouchable!

Yes; I’m the breast-sprouted land,

a Sambhogini1

full of life, who loves skin;

forests and valleys, rivers and mountains take birth in me

 

Untouchable!

Yes; I don’t care for

you faggots who indulge

in your solipsistic schemes;

rather I care for

the monkey which jumps from tree to tree

with its young one clinging to its sides

 

Untouchable!

Yes; I do not fear

the radiance of your eyes

which without tears and tomorrows

have become a furnace for

money and nuclear weapons;

rather I fear

the dog which eats

your shit and guards your house

 

Fake eyes don’t see dreams

 

Untouchable!

Yes; I eat cow

and have become one

dancing in valleys, mountains, plains;

firmly planting my foot on land

I lift my tail to hit the rainbow,

I gore the rainy clouds and

fling them over graveyards

 

Untouchable!

Yes; I eat cow

and have become one.

I with an udder in every strand of my body hair

roam around feeding milk to babies found in garbage dumps

 

Untouchable!

Yes; I became cow by eating it

But I will not eat your fodder

to become human like you;

I can’t eat humans.

 

Translated from Kannada by Ankur Betageri

(With some modifications by the editorial team)

‘Govu Tindu Govinantaadavanu’. From N.K. Hanumantiah’s collection of poems ‘Chitrada Bennu’ (2006) Kannada Sangha; St Joseph’s College of Commerce.