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Indian Poetry in English

is the best. There are many great authors. Check out Modern Indian Poetry in English by Bruce King (2001 Oxford India) for hints.

Here is something by Vinda Karandikar (from The Sacred Heresy):

The Ganges of Sweat

The Ganges of Sweat knows no pause.
She flows on gaspingly
from infinity to infinity,
pounding rocks with the thrust of her head,
breaking all the cliff and crags,
skimming over hill and dale.

The Ganges of Sweat knows no pause.
She breaks all bounds and barriers
of country, religion and blood.
She waters soils, both black and white.
Look, how she flows over the entire world,
how the boat of life canes on her stream!

The Ganges of Sweat knows no pause.
She flowed in the past, flows in the present;
flows day and night morning and evening;
as much in summer as in winter.
A fuming cobra as it were,
She bites the one who stamps on her.

The Ganges of Sweat knows no pause.
She flows onward in sheer abandon.
She flows behind those ploughs in the fields;
she flows beside the machines in the mills,
flows through the mines, and behind the swords,
effacing stamps and effacing titles.

The Ganges of Sweat knows no pause.
She levels the hills; fills up the pits;
makes even all that lies around.
she changes her course from age to age
and thus fulfills the Universal will:
brings down to dust the tyrant's throne.

The Ganges of Sweat knows no pause.
Her mud is red; her water is black.
Singing the songs of revolution,
she explores the ultimate ocean
of unity, of freedom, of a new millennium,
with multiple mouths in multiple ways.



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