With a bucketful of tar and a broomstump
with a mouthful of filth and smut
with scabies on the head and ulcers on the feet
and sores all over the skin
I stand here at the porch of the world.
Villains, do you dare abuse me?
Why shut the door in my face
as though the holy place were your family plot?
Why such pretences, why such pretensions,
You, thorns of the vineyard!
Here I am with a bucketful of tar
to blacken the walls of the world.
Come on, then: I tell you if you dare obstruct me,
I will blacken your blanched faces too.
You are all carrion birds that scramble for funeral offerings
on the new moon day in the month of Cancer.
Didn’t you crush with your fists
the jasmine buds that opened out amidst the pain of the night?
Didn’t you in a herd slake your bestial lust
under the shade of the roadside tree?
I lay with my eyes open
pressing my finger to the ulcer on my foot,
The stone-pillow and the bed of sand and mud
were drenched in tears
when the pus oozed out from the gaping sore
and pain stuck to my very soul.
Didn’t you then hold your noses and drive me out like a pest
with your palm-leaf broom, O my good people?
I then snatched away your broom
and its stump is my pen today.
With a bucketful of tar and a broom stump
and a song of hatred just aroused
I’ll blacken your mansions
with the dirt from the gutter:
I’ll paint you naked and black and provoke your gentility;
I’ll smash your antiques in their coloured glass cases;
I’ll plant thorns in the paths
of your beautiful gardens;
I’ll draw graffiti that’ll pain your eyes;
I’ll throw filth upon you
and take off your dress of virtue.
My breath, reeking with camphor, will coat your perfume
bottle with slime,
will dirty the water in your orchard lotus pond,
will draw a mandala with dark cloud ink on the white sky
and will dance on those squares a dance of fury.
Translated from the Malayalam by K. Ayyappa Paniker and Ray King