Kongu by Jupaka Subhadra

Kongu isn’t a rag that stands guard over my head 

Kongu ties up my hunger,

tucks my stomach in and keeps watch

for me like Katta Maisamma while sleeping;

When I turn into a canal of sweat at work

she mops it up like a cool breeze,

like the moon clutching together the stars

she glistens as the sack

that holds roots, vegetables, grains

and the komati‘s groceries on my head;

In the fields and the fallow plots, when I grow tired

she spreads out a bed to give me rest,

when my grief streams from my eyes to the skies

she draws my eye babies towards herself

like a mother, and hugs them close, my dirt rag;

When my husband reaches out in love or anger

like a ball of butter she always gets caught before I,

to aggression or violence, from those at home or outside,

my kongu rag always succumbs first…

Kissing my ears and cheeks

she holds up an umbrella of senna flowers

over the dawn of my face

the sapphires of my hair;

From chilly weather and searing looks

from the blasts of heat waves

from the sneakiness of rain drops

she offers cool relief like the shade of a tree,

becomes a warm fire that covers my shoulders.

She becomes a pad for cool pots

that slake your thirst from a mile away,

burns her fingers

handling vessels on the stove,

comforts my crying babies

hugging them like warm baby clothing.

Though she works cheerfully by my side all day in the dust

she stems the life streams

flowing from my body’s sluices all night;

Like a cow nursing a new-born calf

she licks all dirt off my body,

like a wicker wall

she hides the modugu stain spreading through my cloth;

Only when she becomes the snake charmer’s been at my waist

do planting, harvesting, weeding and threshing,

chores and songs screech into motion.

My dirt rag that rolls in my hands, sweat, bed, bones, limbs

in pleasure and sorrow,

my kongu rag that sticks to me

in work and song, in crisis and comfort,

like the filth that clings to my feet, the companion

of my life path…slaving like the washerman’s stone,

when does my perspiring kongu find the time for rest?

She’s not the patchy pallu that stands guard over my head

nor the hobbling stone… over my breast

how can I drag her into the bazaar

set fire to her honour and lose myself? 

• Katta Maisamma: Village goddess, goddess of water bodies, tanks etc.
• Komati: Shopkeeper, Bania.
• Modugu: Here, it refers to the colour (bright orange-red) of the Butea monosperma tree (called ‘Palash’ in Hindi).

Jupaka Subhadra, in this poem, discusses how the Kongu, the free end of the sari, doesn’t just stand guard over the Dalit working woman: it’s a tool, a companion, a comrade-in-drudgery. Much unlike the ghunghat (the Hindu equivalent of the veil) draped over the head of an upper-caste woman.

Translated by Naren Bedide from the Telugu original (‘kongu naa bocce miida kaawalunDE bonta pEggaadu’ from the collection of Madiga poetry ‘kaitunakala danDem’), first published in the literary magazine Danse Macabre. Read his translations of other Dalitbahujan poets here.

Image courtesy of the artist and feminist poet Nitoo Das (River Slant).