Jacinta Kerketta: Author Profile (1983-)
Wikipedia; "Kerketta was born on 3 August 1983, to Pushpa Anima Kerketta and Jay Prakash Kerketta in Khudaposh, a village in the West Singhbhum District of the Indian state of Jharkhand located on the surroundings of the Saranda forest near the Jharkhand-Odisha border. "
Jacinta Kerketta is a poet and journalist who has been active in advocating for Adivasi communities in Jharkhand. She wrote for several years for the Ranchi edition of the Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran. More recently, she has written for the online news portal The Wire.
A number of her articles on Adivasis can be found at the People's Archive of Rural India. A representative article from Kerketta on Adivasi struggles for land rights in Jharkhand can be found here.
Jacinta Kerketta has published three books of poetry, Angor, Jadon Ke Zamin (translated into English as Land of the Roots), and Ishwar Aur Bazaar.
A few lines of Kerketta's poetry are included below.
Ears Of Paddy Tied Bound By The Dam
Yet again Phulo's heart
Is a sweltering, blazing desert
Burning within on its own hot sands
As she watches the sowing of seeds
After a light drizzle in the fields.Holding on a few scraps of paper,
Standing helpless on the banks of the dam,
In every rain, Salo's mother
Searches frenziedly for her lost farmlands.The city dazzles with lights shining bright,
All thanks to the building of the dam,
While she startles at the very sight of her own shadow in the dark night
Cast by a flickering earthen lamp.Today Soma starves,
For his fields are now massive reservoirs.
The cage of his ribs protrudes through his skin,
The innards shrink and shrivel within.Now a dam to hold back the welling tears,
Now a dam to contain the seething rage.
These dams shall burst one day for sure,
When the boughs of sakua
From the hilltops in rebellion roar,
Sweeping out powers that destroy and displace.
And once again in the breeze will sway
The ears of paddy in their majesty,
Enclosed by mud mounds, no more by dams.
A few other poems by Jacinta Kerketta can also be found here.