From the innocent faces of hundreds of displaced people,
Whom do I ask to recount
The tragic tale of being waterlogged?
Who will tell, and how, the way it submerged—
The village temple, the cremation ground, the schoolhouse,
The mango orchard where we played Dahimankidi (monkey-branch game) in childhood,
The shrine of the village goddess, receiving offerings since our ancestors’ time,
The drumstick backyard garden won during the brothers’ partition,
And the Bhagabata Tungi (village religious community hall) where we daily prayed,
“Save me, O Lord, I am but a mere mortal”—how it all drowned?
How did it feel deep inside the chest
When the village banyan tree was being chopped down?
The very tree where, after tying sacred threads for sixteen Tuesdays,
The eldest daughter had left for her groom’s house.
When the bulldozer rolled over the temple steps
Where, after four daughters, a mother had crawled bare-bodied daily
Praying for a son—how did that strike the liver?
The experience of the first rain, getting drenched with a lover in Mahuljhar, is now just a memory,
For all those Mahua trees are now imprisoned under water.
Since reaching the age of understanding, we kept hearing:
A wide road will come to this village,
Canal water will yield double crops,
The fields will smile, the farmer will smile,
No one will ever have to migrate for labor (Dadan) again,
No one will toil at the brick kilns,
No one will endure the bloodshot eyes of the labor contractor (Sardar).
Now, by the time strength and youth have arrived,
There is no land, no house, no birthplace,
Not even the village itself exists.
Now, my only identity is: “a resident of the displaced region.”
History will write about this, won’t it…?
Built with government compensation money,
Come to my air-conditioned, marble-floored house;
I will serve you coffee, not just black tea.
I will give a “byte” in front of your media booms and microphones,
And I will tell the story of my submerged civilization,
Choking back the tears deep within my chest,
I will tell how the “lifeline” of this region
Was built over our graves.
— Ratnamaya Tripathy
Adhyayana, Balangir
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Original Odia : Ratnamaya Tripathy
Translated by : Dr. Khyatimaya Tripathy
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