Or in other words, Happy Birthday, Karnataka, it’s been 50 years since you were born. What do I say to a place that’s been part of my childhood and my growing up, but also reason for my growing away? I love you, but that love is mixed with sadness, with disappointment and anger. If only you would be what most in this state (over 50 million of us) imagine you to be – a place of prosperity and joy, of pluralism and peace. Instead, so many of us live unimagined/unimaginable realities, nightmares rather than dreams.
Still, your people wish you a Happy Birthday. Because you might remember then – or at the very least, the people who claim to govern you might remember – that in your people, is your strength.
Here’s a poem I wrote for my friends (and extended family) in Raichur over ten years ago:
I found words in unexpected places
in Deodurg.
In a small stillness among the cattle feet
In sudden murmurings of water
(subdued but brave)
splintering through a vast yellowness.
I found strength
and a terrible humility
in the spurts of laughter
from tired-lined faces.
In the quietness of discovery
I found words
(and a funny sort of peace)
in Deodurg.
