ANISH GARANGE

Don’t You Dare

Translated from the Gujarati by Hemang Ashwinkumar

Please find the original Gujarati version here.

POSTERS

posters on these craggy walls
hang like my mirror, warts and all
the rage of glue surges
and one face emerges
from endless newspapers
titillating banners of films
naked columns of magazines
exhausted covers of books
magnetic advertisements
just one face emerges
as if to perform an eerie circus
these posters with craggy faces like mirror

the face soiled with khaman-kadhi is my face
news of condolence meet declares my death
you piss over me in pay-and-use toilets
in rallies i wince as ink is sprayed in placards
i am the scrunched-up ball of waste paper
i am pinned to the board of police station
i am stuck on walls of railway station
that dazed one, mind you
on the smutty hoods of rickshaws
sprayed with paan spittle is my face
posters of missing persons with different faces everyday
yet the cellar of posters is never short of horrors
these posters with craggy faces are like my mirror

DON’T YOU DARE
(Originally written in Bhantu Dilect)

don’t you dare remove my mask
don’t try that salve on my scars
a fire smolders in my chest
don’t fan it to a blaze
the day that volcano erupts
no one, you heard it right,
no one will be spared
all will turn to ash
don’t you dare
let sleeping storms lie, don’t shake

i too have a voice
and a deep dark abyss
i too bear a torch blazing
and a thought—a real scorch
i too have a heart
and a lasting hunger
but you won’t get it
‘coz you’ve got a stone for spirit
a hollow a deadly cobra’s burrow
don’t you try your tricks
don’t spur the tornedo, don’t you twit

a volcano boils inside me
dunno how i endure these daggers
how often I’ve fallen in my own eyes
i’ve simply lost the count
cast your spells, perform black magic
but i’ll walk on rain or shine
miles and miles unhindered

don’t you dare cross my way
don’t arouse that tempest, in your best interest

Anish Garange works with Budhan Theatre in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He belongs to a de-notified tribe called Chhara community. He has masters in Hindi literature and writes in Hindi, Gujarati and Bhantu. He was nominated for Ahmedabad Heroes Series for his work with Nomad Band, the music wing of Budhan Theatre, for educating children the art of making music with utensils used to distil country liquor. He writes about what he sees in his neighbourhood and believes it will bring change as his art has a purpose. He can be reached at garangeanish@gmail.com

Hemang Ashwinkumar is a poet, fiction writer, translator, editor and critic who writes in Gujarati and English. His poems have been translated into Greek, Italian and other Indian languages. His English translations include Poetic Refractions (2012), an anthology of contemporary Gujarati poetry, and Thirsty Fish and Other Stories (2013), an anthology of select stories by eminent Gujarati writer Sundaram. Penguin Random House India has brought out his translation of Gujarati Dalit writer Dalpat Chauhan’s novel Vultures (2022), and edited collection of short stories titled Fear and Other Stories (2023). His Gujarati translations of Arun Kolatkar’s Kala Ghoda Poems (2020), Sarpa Satra (2021) have been critically acclaimed. His scholarly monograph Translating the Translated: Poetics and Politics of Literary Translation in India will be published by Orient Blackswan in 2024. His translation of eminent painter-poet Gulammohammed Sheikh’s collection of autobiographical essays Gher Jatan (On the Way Home) will be published by Seagull Books, Kolkata.