The low hills are stony, russet and bare,
with no trees on them save the stunted thorny cactus.
You wouldn’t hear the call of a peacock
in all the land.
Hyenas, porcupines and monitor lizards
are the only creatures that you’d come across.
The people are starved;
hunger drives them afield
in search of the prickly grass
whose seeds I have seen them eat.
Such as the Jadavs of Jaisalmer.
The senior queen drives her donkeys
to a distant pond to fetch her water;
alone she must go,
and bestirring with her hands
the water
to clear its surface
of the floating dirt and debris,
fill her pots;
and load them on to the wooden frames
on the donkeys’ backs
and drive them home,
trudging all the way,
tired and exhausted.
The king’s chief bard is pot-bellied;
he wears his lower garment
in a loose unseemly manner;
he is lame in both his legs;
and groans at every step he walks.
The carpet on which the Rawal’s court assembles
is worn, with large holes in it;
his poets are all stupid
and cannot distinguish between
a buffalo and an elephant;
to them coarse wool
and silk are just the same.
Such is the land of Dhat!
Praises be to the land of Dhat!
The comely women all go
to fetch water at dawn;
they return past midnight
dishevelled and distraught;
their dishevelled children
pine for them all day.
Such, indeed, is the land of Dhat!
Praises galore to the land of Dhat!
Translated from the Rajasthani by Kesri Singh