Nirmala Putul, "Santhal Pargana" (Poem translated from Hindi)
Nirmala Putul, "Santhal Pargana" (poem)
Source:
https://www.hindwi.org/kavita/santhal-paragna-nirmala-putul-kavita
Editor's note. See Wikipedia: "Santhal Pargana Division"
Translated from Hindi with the help of ChatGPT.
Santhal Pargana is no longer what it used to be!
Very few people remain here
in their native language and traditional attire.
Rushing toward the market,
everything has gotten muddled these days.
The great old trees have been uprooted,
and in the sprawling concrete jungle,
its identity has been lost.
Its very essence is being transformed.
Bows, arrows, mandals, drums, and flutes —
all are being gathered into folk museums,
loaded onto the funeral cart of time,
in the name of its “betterment.”
Like mushrooms after rain, institutions have sprung up,
housing so-called social workers,
officials, lackeys, contractors, middlemen —
and all of them,
with open, colorful bottles in hand,
are drafting plans at round tables.
In the bottles is intoxication.
Floating in that intoxication
are many Adivasi girls,
their tender bodies adrift.
The Adivasi girls have dreams —
within those dreams, incomplete desires.
There is hunger,
and in that hunger stretches a rugged land.
Upon the land are black, bare hills;
upon the hills — desolation…
That’s it!!!
What more is there in Santhal Pargana?
Not even “that much” remains
of Santhal Pargana
as there are stories
of its culture.