This poem is a tribute to Prof. GN Saibaba who taught us that any effort to overcome individual disabilities is invariably tied to the efforts to overcome disabilities of the entire humanity.
Hatching plots
time and again,
they killed your kid
Kabir,
your own kid…
You taught the kids
to see things as is,
to condemn the evil &
to care for this land
and beyond…
Treading the path you laid
bounded to his chair,
this kid,
laid the Kashmir valley bare
for international gaze.
For this kid
voiced it out
for Adivasis
from Khandamal to Kakulam
fighting the corporate loot
in forests
they killed your kid
Kabir,
your own kid…
Hands cuffed
and put to rot in the Anda cell,
your kid
was denied a chair
to even defecate.
& Kumari had to run to courts
Kabir,
had to run to courts…
Your kid…
who ought to
have rejoiced
teaching poetry and prose
and dreams being sown…
they killed your kid
Kabir,
your own kid…
They killed your kid
Kabir,
who, even in solitary confinement
refused to die ;
who found love for life in
the sounds of growing grass
they killed your kid
Kabir,
your own kid…
Kabir,
you, who sowed the seeds
of love in the heart of this kid…
How could you vanish
Without brooding up the hearts of merciless??
They killed your kid
Kabir,
your own kid…
And,
the stains are on you.
Shashank SR is a PhD Scholar in Education at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru and is a member of the secretariat of the All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE). His writings and translations have appeared in Kannada periodicals Nyayapatha and Samvaada amongst others.
