Translated from the Gujarati by Sahil Kureshi
Where?
Their goddesses, like them
Fair, beautiful, full-bodied, and like a middle-aged
savarna woman
adorned with fine clothes and ornaments, flamboyant,
A lotus in one hand, making mudras with the other;
Veena wielding, clad in white ...
Our goddesses, like us
Dark, ugly, half-dressed
ember-eyed, a garland of skulls,
In one hand, a khappar [skull-bowl]
In the other, dripping blood, a khadag [sword].
They require offerings of meat and hooch,
To them, like us, are very dear
Chicken, mutton, and hooch …
Today I go through poetry
And call out:
Where?
Like Mahakali’s
khappar dripping blood
is that blood-soaked poem?
Where is it?
Amongst the paeans to the flautist
I want to see
Holding a human head
a poem dripping with blood.
Where is it?
To, Father Stan
Father Stan,
When you were arrested
As an 80-year-old
What could you have done
If released on bail
Against the government?
Would you have flung bombs in parliament
like Bhagat Singh?
Would you have like Madanlal Dhingra
shot down two or three of them?
Or maybe like Subhashchandra
you would have become a captain
of a tribal liberation army!
What could you have done
if released on bail?
Are they so fearful, weak,
cowardly, these dark British—
that they let you
an 80-year-old man
ailing, die
by not releasing on bail?
Sahil Parmar is a Gujarati poet and a prominent voice in the Gujarati Dalit literary movement since the 1980s. He has produced multiple collections of poetry including Vyatha Pachisi (1984) and Mathaman (2006). The poems translated here are from his latest collection Tal Bhatigal (2026). His poems, including the three poems presented, give searing, unflinching expression to the lived realities of caste oppression, poverty, and social injustice.
Sahil Kureshi is an assistant professor at CEPT University, Ahmedabad. His primary research interests are labour history of Ahmedabad and student politics in post-independence Gujarat. His interest in translation developed as a result of academic research that required advanced translation and critical interpretation of Gujarati materials, under conditions that require contextual awareness and methodological rigour. He is especially drawn to poetry that is political and engages with questions of class, caste, gender, memory, and social justice. Sahil translates poetry from Gujarati to English and vice versa.