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From ULR
Issue 6 – Freedom
They Help Themselves to Many Things (for K. Satyanarayana)
Hands seize bread, yellowed letters, and revolutionary songs, silencing a father's fear.
December 1, 2021
For eight hours, they search his house,
help themselves to the bread
that sits crumbling on the table.
They help themselves to the love letters
he had written his wife at age twenty two,
run their fingers on their yellow age.
They help themselves to a book by Marx
he had bought on the footpath of Abids for ten rupees,
the dust on its spine thick as the country’s decline.
They help themselves to a photograph of Ambedkar,
and then laugh at the spider that scurries from behind it.
One of them mock-aims a gun at it.
They help themselves to his worries about his wife
and what they are doing to her in the next room.
They help themselves to the father- fear in the pit of his stomach.
What will become of my daughter if…?
They help themselves to the revolutionary songs in his head.
They even sing them out loud,
their voices hard and mocking.
The words dart like arrows into the dark night
that crouches by the window,
silent and afraid.
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PART OF A COLLECTIONThey Help Themselves to Many Things (for K. Satyanarayana) and 2 other poems
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K Srilata
K SRILATA was writer in residence at Sangam house, India, Yeonhui Art space, Seoul and the University of Stirling, Scotland. She teaches Literature and Creative Writing at IIT Madras. Her debut novel Table for Four (Penguin, India) was long listed in 2009 for the Man Asian literary prize. Srilata is the c0-editor of the anthologies The Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry, Short Fiction from South India (OUP), All the Worlds Between: A Collaborative Poetry Project Between India and Ireland (Yoda) and Lifescapes: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers from Tamilnadu (Women Unlimited). Her book The Other Half of the Coconut: Women Writing Self-Respect History was re-issued as an e-book by Zubaan in 2020. She has five poetry collections, the latest of which, The Unmistakable Presence of Absent Humans was published by Poetrywala, Mumbai in 2019. Her translations include Vatsala’s novels Once there was a Girl (Writers Workshop) and The Scent of Happiness (Ratna Books, 2021). A multi-genre anthology on the disability experience is forthcoming from Amazon/Westland later this year.