Namdeo dhasal biography graphic organizer

TRIBUTE

I vividly remember that sweaty summer afternoon of June , when I had the opportunity to speak to maverick poet and activist Namdeo Dhasal who authored the powerful lines quoted below.

Namdeo dhasal biography graphic organizer

I wished to speak to him in connection with my study on the Worli riots in Mumbai and the Dalit Panthers. Having grown up in the grit of a city with a difficult working class history, he was not only an icon for Dalit literature and radical Dalit politics, but for the unequal city itself.

This is an attempt to sketch out why

On the way to the dargah1

A leaking sun

Went burning out

Into the night&#;s embrace

When I was born 

On a pavement

In crumpled rags — 

And become orphaned — 

The one who gave birth to me 

Went to our father in heaven.

She was tired of the harassing ghosts in the streets

She wanted to wash off the darkness in