I am not a saint
Don’t make one of me.
It wasn’t all sacrifice and humility
and truth.
I didn’t start out to
Appropriate the forgotten.
It was not till they tweaked my soul
That I discovered the humanity
Under my nails.
I didn’t know my colour
Or my place or my kind
Till I was dislodged
From my universe.
Don’t forget that
I was a dandy once
Not always a half naked fakir.
I too had my night sweats
Of lust and anger and fear
As I grappled the primal man.
I had to loose a thousand skirmishes
Before I won the wars.
So much blood and so many loves
Fell by the wayside
On the thorny road
to peaceful revolution.
Hard won this badge
And these scars
And this battle axe of a stick.
So don’t invest me
With a halo.
Know and understand
All that a man has to do
to make himself
A Mahatma.
Scathing Satire On Colonial Sycophancy In ‘Durbar’, The First Political Poem In Odia Literature
Before 1894, Odisha had no established tradition of political poetry. While a few poems may have contained implicit political references,...
