Mahatma Gandhi's "Harijans, the "Children of God", spurned by one and all in the name of their own "God"...
The Night Soil Man
I
Nothing sticks to-get-her like turds
No border line nor skin to cross
Condescension's never a case for loss
High birth's distilled from fermenting curds
The day dawns where sleep reigns loud
Where the pitchblack venomous karunagam*
slithers out from its hideout in the ox-bow
touch-me-not underbrush
to make its hungry way into Vanar Kampung
Sandal-less the coarse makeshift sweat-soaked thalappa* fits
his disheveled scalp like some portrait halo yet to hang high
Thodti* strides majestic loping down the mired mud gravel pathway
(Who defers to whom : the " cobra " or the " pariah " ?)
One is out to catch rats romping in the rafters
zinc-roofed one-storeyed houses
nailed planks on cement stump stilts
The other to fetch slippery rubber pots
laced with diarrhoeac splashes phlegm menstrual blood
the day's un-read newsprint soaked with urine mixed
with spermatozoic squirts
The spent air breathes carbide dry on the back of the late-afternoon thunder storm
the dense morass of foliage
the taste of mashed mango leaf
the scent of spermatozoa durian reek
Late night cinema-goers lie clutching the blind Lata Mangeshkar hits
piped-dreams
spreadeagled on stained yarrow or atap mats
The Sikh guard lays out his elaborate night-out
at the Chinese saw-mill gate
his un-used one-barrel rifle bedded down
on his string-bed
fast asleep while the hurricane lamp flickers
dying by dawn
A lone sentinel owl keeps base time
stalked by panther pawed musang*
in one crook of the sprawling rain-tree's
over-arching ghostly lumber limbs
The moon's full pallid sick for the earth
Road lamps dim into their dull amber cocoons
time out of time
The jungle-green sanitary van throbs discreet
on the overgrown tarmac under-brush sidetable
the Malay driver eyes the quasi-un-clad nightsoil women
their paps prurient
in sack-coloured khadar* sari cloth
as they hover on their hinds for
the Night Souled Man to bring in the fresh-filled shit pots
the leprous bleach of his hands and feet glint and glower
as the whites of his never-opened eyes
strain in the half moonlit dimness
at every giant distracted step
a trail of human dung streaming down
his loin cloth
Resources
*karunagam (Tamil) : a variety of cobra ;
*thalappa (Tamil) : a variety of headwear ;
*Thodti (Tamil) : " night soil man " in common parlance ;
*musang (Malay) : wild " undomesticated " cat ;
*khadar (Tamil, from Hindi) : rough un-smoothed-out cloth.
I believe you are writing about India and how the "untouchable" class has to do the most onerous of tasks. But by reusing human shit, they are doing the society a great service, by removing disease and creating fertilizer.
I noticed how you used the Sikh as the security guard and the Malay as the night soil man, occupations that no self-serving Hindu would partake.
Warriors is your essential guide to reigniting your spiritual fire, deepening your connection with God, and breaking down the barriers that separate your loved ones from His divine purpose.
This is a book of 229 Old Testament stories written for adults and young adults. The stories in this unique collection are chronological and are without embellishment or fictionalizing. This is the most complete collection of Old Testament stories t
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I enjoy your writing!
Never Stop Writing
m
I noticed how you used the Sikh as the security guard and the Malay as the night soil man, occupations that no self-serving Hindu would partake.
Ron