Come Poem by Kanishka SricharanPratap

The soil is fit to cultivate,
Come...
We will plough together.
Deeper and deeper...,
And sow seeds.

Now the capital is under our control
Big cities also.

We will rush into
District headquarters
Blocks
To every village.

So many books are left
Of so many languages,
Stories, poems, novels and dictionaries...
We will copy-down
As much as we can
From any book.

What need to know about
Culture, tradition and society?

Mankind?
Those idiots are ugly
What a hair of hairs!
Who cares!

Let us start...
To publish
Fifteen or twenty copies of books,
Copied down.
Arrange
Luxurious inaugural function,
Wear the garland
Sit in the meeting,
And roar
Shout
Cry and howl:
'Language...language...
Literature... literature...! '

We will beat your drum
You beat ours.
Print new certificates,
We will give you
And you to us.

We indulge in
Wine, women, black money and meat
Completely!
And supply
Who needs that.

Shall loot
All Awards
All honours
All schemes
In shares.

Who would object to it:
''He is an idiot
A nonsense coward
Shameless blamer,
A street dog
Barking at the elephant,
A leg-pulling crab! ''
We beat the drums
To kill his image,
Set bamboo pegs to his anus,
Cut his heel.

That's all!
Now we are kings
At the peak of literature!
All others are fools... sheep!
In one roar
We will throw them into pitch.

Come...
Cultivate together,
To flourish
Our language
Our literature
Our culture,
And keep dignity
Of our nation.
Come...!


Translated from Odia by
Subash Chandra Mohapatra