No entry for the new sun: Vilas Rashinkar

Vilas Rashinkar

No entry for the new sun

With determination they set

The stamp of approval

On their own garrulous tongue

So it becomes easy

To collect a hundred tongues

And spit on the sun.

They prop up crumbled bastions

In ten places

With the twigs of history

They unwrap the scriptures

From their protective covers

And insist-

‘These are commandments

engraved on stone.’

From pitch-black tunnels

They gather ashes

Floating on jet-black water

And reconstruct the skeletons

Of their ancestors,

Singing hymns

Of their thoughts

worn to shreds.

There is no entry here

for the new sun.

This is the empire

of ancestor-worship,

of blackened castoffs,

of darkness.

Translated by Priya Adarkar