India: A Million Mutinies Now - pg. 96

Charu, who was a Maharashtrian brahmin, and quite learned in Marathi writing, said there were a number of words in Namdeo's poems that he couldn't understand. he gave me this translation of a poem called 'The Road to the Shrine', fromm Namdeo's first collection.

I was born when the sun became weak
And slowly became extinct
In the embrace of night.
I was born on a footpath
In a rag.


[And the 'crude', Dalit word used for 'rag' was chilbut]

On the day I was born I was an orphan.
The one who gave me birth went to God.
I was tired of this ghost
Haunting me on the footpath.
I spent most of my life
Washing away the darkness in that sari.

[But the word used for 'sari' was not an elegant one: it was luggude, and it referred to the way village women tied their saris, wrapping the garment around each leg separately, creating a kind of sari-breeches.]

I grew like a person who has lost his fuse.
I ate excrement and grew.
Give me five paise, give me five paise,

[there are 100 paise in a rupee]

And take five curses in return.
I am on my way to the shrine.