Which Language should I Speak?: Arun Kamble

Arun Kamble

Which Language should I Speak?

Chewing totters in the badlands

My grandapa,

The permanent resident of my body,

The household of tradition heaped on his back,

Hollers at me,

‘you whore-son, talk like we do. Talk, I tell you!’

picking through the Vedas

his top-knot well-oiled with ghee,

my Brahmin teacher tells me,

‘you idiot, use the language correctly!’

now I ask you, which language should I speak?

Translated by Priya Adarkar