IPEN - Poems by Shruti Sareen



Untitled

This poem is about the Indian bullet.
It is about Naga tribes in Manipur
and the Meghalaya which was
a part of Assam. This poem
is about the island of Majuli.
This poem is about the fertility of guns
and the orality of bullets.
It is about the reality of the unknown
It is about you, and me, and them.
It is about us. This poem
is also about flowers.


In the tea garden of Tebhaga

I don’t have even two bighas of land
I work in a tea garden
As a labourer.
I don’t have money, it’s
the famine na
There is nothing to eat, so
I eat khichdi everyday.
There are three daughters, a family
They don’t have clothes so
After washing them they wait
For the clothes to dry.
The zamindar’s men come to sell water
I tell them “no money.
Don’t want water.”
The bastards, they pour the water on the ground
And ask me for payment.

         --Shruti Sareen, Delhi

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