Varavara Rao: "You are lucky, you are meritorious"

Via Amit Kumar Singh (see his comment on this post), we have the link to Varavara Rao's poem titled Déjà vu from 1990. Here are a few stanzas from near the end of this poem:

Lucky
The corpse of your merit
Parades through the main streets
Has its funeral in `chourastas�
Amidst chanting of holy `mantras�

But Merit has no death
So
You creatively conduct symbolic procession
And enact the mourning `prahasan�
In us
To die or to be killed
There is no merit

We die
With hunger, or disease,
Doing hard labor, or committing crime,
In lock up or encounter
(Meritorious will not agree inequality is violence)

We will be thrown
By a roadside;
In a filthy pit;
On a dust heap;
In a dark forest

We will turn ash
Without a trace
We will `miss�
From a hill or a hole

Our births and deaths
Except for census statistics,
What use they have
For the national progress?

We take birth
And perish in death
In and due to
Miserable poverty
You assume the `Avatar�
When Dharma is in danger
And renounce the role
After completing the job
You are the `sutradhar�

You are lucky
You are meritorious.