Khadar Mohiuddin (b. 1955)
From Birthmark
A Certain Fiction Bit Me

A certain fiction bit me
a distortion
a slander

August 10, 1955
that’s the day I was born

in a small village
in a remote corner of Krishna District

Long before I was born
my name was listed among traitors

History depicted
son as stepson,
divided brother from brother
and left me alone

Textbooks laughed at me
in my childhood

I was just becoming a person
when this history drove strange fears
deep into me
tortured me, threw me
to the howling winds

The present makes me responsible
for things I’ve nothing to do with

The present casts around me
shadows of suspicion

Shadows watching me
over my head
always, all ways
They squeeze my existence into numbers

They see 1947
in the umbilical cord, freshly cut
its end still wet with the blood
of the baby born in my house

Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan
Muslim go to Pakistan

Another place to go as well
You will know its name as hell

Helpless in the theatre of slogans
I’m imprisoned in the present

No constitution pats my back
The throne of three lions
smiling behind their whiskers
takes no notice of me

I have no human form
except as an alien
as some kind of memorial to 1947
in the mind
of the first class citizen

Translated from the Telugu by Velcheru Narayana Rao