Namdeo Dhasal Biography
Namdeo Laxman Dhasal (Marathi: नामदेव लक्ष्मण ढसाळ) (Namdev Dhasal) is a Marathi poet, writer and Human Rights activist from Maharashtra, India.
Biography
Dhasal was born on February 15, 1949, in a village near Pune, India. A member of the previously called Mahar class, he grew up in dire poverty. He spent his childhood in Golpitha, a red light district in Mumbai, where his father worked for a butcher.
Following the example of the American Black Panther movement, he founded the Dalit Panther with friends in 1972. This militant organization supported its radical political activism with provocative pamphlets. Dhasal was one of the famous and outspoken members of this group.
In 1973, he published his first volume of poetry, Golpitha. More poetry collections followed: Moorkh Mhataryane (By a Foolish Old Man) --inspired by Maoist thoughts--; Tujhi Iyatta Kanchi? (How Educated Are You?); erotic Khel; and Priya Darshini (about the former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi).
Dhasal wrote two novels, and also published pamphlets such as Andhale Shatak (Century of Blindness) and Ambedkari Chalwal (Ambedkarite Movement), which was a reflection on the socialist and communist concepts of Dalit movement founder Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Later, he published two more collections of his poetry: Mi Marale Suryachya Rathache Sat Ghode (I Killed the Seven Horses of the Sun), and Tujhe Boat Dharoon Mi Chalalo Ahe (I'm Walking, Holding Your Finger).
Recently, Dhasal has been writing columns for the Marathi daily Saamana. Earlier, he worked as an editor for the weekly Satyata.
Activist
In 1982, cracks began to appear in the Panther movement. Ideological disputes gained the upper hand and eclipsed the common goal. Dhasal wanted to engender a mass movement and widen the term Dalit to include all oppressed people, but the majority of his comrades insisted on maintaining the exclusivity of their organization.
Serious illness and alcohol addiction of Dhasal overshadowed the following years, during which he wrote very little. In the 1990s, he once again became politically more active.
Dhasal currently holds a national office in the Indian Republican Party, which was formed by the merger of all Dalit parties. In 2006, he publicly joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's call for "Hindu brotherhood".
Literary Style
The Dalit literature tradition is old, though the term "Dalit literature" was introduced only in 1958. Dhasal was greatly inspired by the work of Baburao Bagul, who employed photographic realism to draw attention to the circumstances which those deprived of their rights from birth have to endure. Dhasal’s poems broke away from stylistic conventions. He included in his poetry many words and expressions which only the Dalits normally used. Thus, in Golpitha he adapted his language to that of the red light milieu, which shocked middle class readers.
The establishment’s assessment of Dhasal’s political, as opposed to his artistic achievements may differ drastically, but for the writer they are inextricably linked. In an interview in 1982 he said that if the aim of social struggles was the removal of unhappiness, then poetry was necessary because it expressed that happiness vividly and powerfully. Later he stated, "Poetry is politics." Dhasal adheres to this principle in his private life. He told the photographer Henning Stegmüller, "I enjoy discovering myself. I am happy when I am writing a poem, and I am happy when I am leading a protest of prostitutes fighting for their rights."
The nocturnal porcupine reclines here
Like an alluring grey bouquet
Wearing the syphilitic sores of centuries
Pushing the calendar away
...
Approaching the Organised Harem of the Octopus
We are approaching the organised harem of the octopus
I am the seal bearing the image of the bull dated March '65
My properties are Mohenjodaro
I am the one who drew the head on the lion pillar
My ornamental daily weather
Radiates from the feet
From hand-to-hand I release my catacombs
Go scatter curds milk butter in the courtyard
Organised harems of the octopus are approaching us
Frightening grotesque people eating
Starvation underlined in decimals
In the womb of 1970
Menstruating broad
The capable hand in bed holds a partisan inferno
Bhang in the intestines
Those who are wearing gum-boots may raise their hands
Organised harems of the octopus are approaching us
After she conceives the female eats up the male
1234567890 are all numbers on the trees
We have to absorb the slowness of a day in our own momentum
Place a weathered face in the flesh market
Pluck it out of the flesh market
There is a four and a zero before us
The zero can generate four scattering away in four dimensions
If a zero is placed after four it becomes forty
If a zero is placed under four it gets a strong foundation
Four-zero accompany us when we say ‘Inquilaab Zindabaad!'
We plant ‘the Banner of Blood'
Those who were gloomy while frisking four and zero
Remained forever the slaves of slaves
After she conceives the female eats up the male
Go scatter curds milk butter in the courtyard
Organised harems of the octopus are approaching us.
...
The nocturnal porcupine reclines here
Like an alluring grey bouquet
Wearing the syphilitic sores of centuries
Pushing the calendar away
Forever lost in its own dreams
Man's lost his speech
His god's a shitting skeleton
Will this void ever find a voice, become a voice?
If you wish, keep an iron eye on it to watch
If there's a tear in it, freeze it and save it too
Just looking at its alluring form, one goes berserk
The porcupine wakes up with a start
Attacks you with its sharp aroused bristles
Wounds you all over, through and through
As the night gets ready for its bridegroom, wounds begin to blossom
Unending oceans of flowers roll out
Peacocks continually dance and mate
This is hell
This is a swirling vortex
This is an ugly agony
This is pain wearing a dancer's anklets
Shed your skin, shed your skin from its very roots
Skin yourself
Let these poisoned everlasting wombs become disembodied.
Let not this numbed ball of flesh sprout limbs
Taste this
Potassium cyanide!
As you die at the infinitesimal fraction of a second,
Write down the small ‘s' that's being forever lowered.
Here queue up they who want to taste
Poison's sweet or salt flavour
Death gathers here, as do words,
In just a minute, it will start pouring here.
O Kamatipura,
Tucking all seasons under your armpit
You squat in the mud here
I go beyond all the pleasures and pains of whoring and wait
For your lotus to bloom.
— A lotus in the mud.
...
Crossing over a period of painful love-play,
Let's reject the traditional garden of conventions.
Let's change the sex of Eve.
Let's make Adam pregnant.
Let's speculate beyond animal anxieties.
Hell's quagmire.
The Moon acts like a pimp
In the history of human bonds.
The bull of sexual passion masticates
On a disembodied heath.
We sail in a sinking ship
And turn into savages.
Even just plain cloves burn our tongue;
And we are afraid of light.
This is how liberation itself punishes a human being.
A human being shouldn't become so spotless.
One should leave a few stains on one's shirt.
One should carry on oneself a little bit of sin.
...
I am a venereal sore in the private part of language.
The living spirit looking out
of hundreds of thousands of sad, pitiful eyes
Has shaken me.
I am broken by the revolt exploding inside me.
There's no moonlight anywhere;
There's no water anywhere.
A rabid fox is tearing off my flesh with its teeth;
And a terrible venom-like cruelty
Spreads out from my monkey-bone.
Release me from my infernal identity.
Let me fall in love with these stars.
A flowering violet has begun to crawl towards horizons.
An oasis is welling up on a cracked face.
A cyclone is swirling in irreducible vulvas.
A cat has commenced combing the hairs of agony.
The night has created space for my rage.
A stray dog has started dancing in the window's eye.
The beak of an ostrich has begun to break open junk.
An Egyptian carrot is starting to savour physical reality.
A poem is arousing a corpse from its grave.
The doors of the self are being swiftly slammed shut.
There's a current of blood flowing through all pronouns now.
My day is rising beyond the wall of grammar.
God's shit falls on the bed of creation.
Pain and roti are being roasted in the same tandoor's fire.
The flame of the clothless dwells in mythologies and folklore.
The rock of whoring is meeting live roots;
A sigh is standing up on lame legs;
Satan has started drumming the long hollowness.
A young green leaf is beginning to swing at the door of desire.
Frustration's corpse is being sewn up.
A psychopathic muse is giving a shove to the statue of eternity.
Dust begins to peel armour.
The turban of darkness is coming off.
You, open your eyes: all these are old words.
The creek is getting filled with a rising tide;
Breakers are touching the shoreline.
Yet, a venom-like cruelty spreads out from my monkey-bone.
It's clear and limpid: like the waters of the Narmada river.
...
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