No Guard for My Bosom 77

76 POETRY

fierce as a tiger,
No Guard for My Bosom In the naughty
rains, the cold
the simmering heat,
as

wwwbrell
the hot winds,
my face
and ears
my pallu
fondly wraps
Joopaka Subhadra umbrella over me,
tlower, forming an
like the thangedu
she keeps my hair warm,

Maisamma the embankment, tree

like the shade-giving
on
andtLike the goddess
the pallu' round my belly holds my hunger. she comforts me.

My sweat streaming as I work tor wages, When I fetch water,

she becomes a rounded pad
my pallu wipes off the sweat on my face like a breeze. e
When I tie vegetables, grains, provisions below the pot on my head
at the stove.
into my pallu to carry on my head, she burns herself as a sooty rag
she twinkles like the moon gathering stars.
While at work in the fields with my
child
she holds my child like the niche holds the
earthen lamp,
Working on the fields, tired,
child playing all day in the dust,
my pallu doubles up as a sheet my
for napping on the bare floor. she clears her streaming nose,
she cleans the dust of her body,
When sorrow causes my tears to flow from eye to sky, as a cow would lick its newborn calf.
my soiled pallu, She drapes around me
wrtihey

the red of menses.

like a mother taking me into her bosom, covering like a thatch,
wipes my tears.
As the snake stands stiff to the song of the piper
When my husband my pallu clutches my waist stiff
either in p m er when I transplant, cut, weed, thresh
passion or
anger
turns on me, as in work, so in song
he finds my pallu first,
like a lump of soft butter. While sweating, while asleep,
in work and at leisure,
Pallu, she in sorrow and in p
is a
rag, e
u d

happiness,
the first casualty in the hands of men y in prosperity and in difficulty,
ua
within and without the house Cos like the dust on my feet
who drag she is close to me.
me, causing pain.
Where does she find time
to
drape herself around my bosom?
My soiled pallu is at work ceaselessly, as a slave.
Originally
first
titled Kongu Naabochemida
Kaavalunde Bonthapeggaadu', this poe
was
published in 2007.
ralu, kongu in Telugu, is the loose end
of the sari. The poet ts Dalit and Sudra women adorn their hair with thangedu (cassia) fower.
muliple uses. enumera
78 POETRY

She is no watch guard at my bosom

nor a burden on my heart.
How can I abandon her in public, thus
giving her a bad name?
How can I survive if I set her aflame?3
-Translated by K. Purushotham
Reference to mainstream feminist poet Jayaprabha, who in her poem Burn this
Sari', asks women to set the sari ablaze.