I really was sorry I only caught the tail end of Meena Kandasamy’s presentation; I teach her poems sometimes. Like this one:
Mulligatawny Dreams
anaconda. candy. cash. catamaran.
cheroot. coolie. corundum. curry.
ginger. mango. mulligatawny.
patchouli. poppadom. rice.
tatty. teak. vetiver.
i dream of an english
full of the words of my language.
an english in small letters
an english that shall tire a white man’s tongue
an english where small children practice with smooth round
pebbles in their mouth to the spell the right zha
an english where a pregnant woman is simply stomach-child-lady
an english where the magic of black eyes and brown bodies
replaces the glamour of eyes in dishwater blue shades
and the airbrush romance of pink white cherry blossom skins
an english where love means only the strange frenzy
between a man and his beloved, not between him and his car
an english without the privacy of its many rooms
an english with suffixes for respect
an english with more than thirty six words to call the sea
an english that doesn’t belittle brown or black men and women
an english of tasting with five fingers
an english of talking love with eyes alone
and i dream of an english
where men
of that spiky, crunchy tongue
buy flower-garlands of jasmine
to take home to their coy wives
for the silent demand of a night of wordless whispered love . . .
(First published in Kavya Bharati)
*****
Or this:
Algorithm for converting a Shudra into a Brahmin
Begin.
Step 1: Take a beautiful Shudra girl.
Step 2: Make her marry a Brahmin.
Step 3: Let her give birth to his female child.
Step 4: Let this child marry a Brahmin.
Step 5: Repeat steps 3-4 six times.
Step 6: Display the end product. It is a Brahmin.
End.
Algorithm advocated by Father of the Nation at Tirupur.
Documented by Periyar on 20.09.1947.
Algorithm for converting a Pariah into a Brahmin
Awaiting another Father of the Nation
to produce this algorithm.
(Inconvenience caused due to inadvertent delay
is sincerely regretted.)
[First published in The Little Magazine]