Mahavir Chavan pays homage to eminent Marathi writer and poet Keshav Meshram who passed away recently::

EMINENT DALIT poet, critic, novelist and short-story writer Keshav Tanaji Meshram passed away in a hospital at Bandra in Mumbai on Thursday. He was suffering from lung cancer. With his death, a prolific literary career of a man (he had written about 40 books), who always maintained balance while voicing the pain, revolt and introspection of the plight of dalits, has also come to an end. Despite being a contemporary of Namdeo Thasaal (founder of dalit panther and a fiery poet), Meshram‘s poetry was like a restrained effort to convey feelings in a decent language.

An earlier link on Blogbharti to a post that had briefly discussed Keshav Meshram, a few weeks ago.

Prabin posts a translation (by Jayant Karve and Eleanor Elliot with Pam Espleland) of one of Meshram’s poems:

One day I cursed that mother-fucker God.
He just laughed shamelessly.
My neighbour – a born-to-pen Brahman – was shocked.
He looked at me with his castor-oil face and said,
‘How can you say such things to the
Source of the Indescribable,
Qualityless, Formless Juggernaut ?
Shame on you for trying to catch his dharma-hood
in a noose of words.’