New Translations of Jacinta Kerketta

After talking to Jacinta, I went back and read for the first time the essay she wrote to introduce the book. The essay is in its whole worth reading. I translated it here. – Matt Reeck

My mom and dad were childhood friends. They were classmates. They loved each other. Then they got married. After that, their relationship soured. Even though they were married, they led completely separate lives. Their lives were extremely lonely. Still, my mother never left him, no matter what. She worried about everyone, and she never took care of herself. Because of this, she died young.

Watching them, I always wondered why their friendship didn’t survive their marriage. Everyone loves talking about love, so why is it that love turns so poisonous? Why do people become so calculating about their relationships? Why did the idea come about that a person is to love only one person? This handicaps our ability to love! It takes its power away. Maybe that’s why there’s so much violence in the world. Why can’t we love multitudes—lots of people, lots of kids, women, trees and bushes, rivers, waterfalls, mountains, forests, the whole world?

These were thoughts that preoccupied me when I was a child. They have since then, as well. One day I realized that I loved the flowers in the field outside the window. I felt so happy! I loved the girl sitting next to me. I loved all my books. The rain, the soil, the forests, the mountains, the rivers—I loved everything. This was in eighth grade. I gained courage from understanding how big love is.

In those days, my teacher loved me. I saw how love filled her with happiness. She was the one who inspired me to write. On my birthday, she ushered me into the staff room to show me the flowers she had bought for me. In her love for me, she walked to the marketplace to buy books for me late in the evening after her working hours. One day, she went to go meet a teacher to brag about me, and she commented on how well I did for one so young. I saw that love should be given freely, without any thought of reward. When I left the school, she cried. She used to talk about how even after she died, she would return to be a part of nature. She asked me to not forget her, even after her death. People like that who were so full of love showed me how caring and respectful love could be. When that is lost, a relationship withers. Love like that gives us the strength to stand up for ourselves.

I’ve tried to keep that love alive. I met wonderful friends full of love. Men and women alike. They all seemed like trees to me. Trees whose roots reached into values and whose hearts expanded as wide as the sky. They always seemed like a mother. Full of respect and care. I was alone and yet tied to everyone else. I was free. We all were free. Even though we had these connections. A commitment to the truth, honesty, and unconditional acceptance carried me forward. I started to think about society’s future, and I felt that each person’s journey was also my journey. We’re all on our own paths, and yet it’s a group trip. We’re always learning from one another. We only realize how tied to others we are when they die. We feel the souls of the trees, mountains, and rivers.

Many people I’ve met say they’re afraid of love. This attitude will turn love to poison. I always wondered how love could turn to poison on its own. When we mix in self-interest, greed, jealousy, hatred, violence, and dishonesty, then love disappears, and poison replaces it. Love must be steadfast. I learned this from my friends who have always stood by my side like trees. They never have interfered. They never have claimed me. They never have suddenly asked me to be something for them. I learned that these sorts of friendships were possible. I was able to live in the Adivasi community and in the world through relationships of unconditional love that are full of respect, care, freedom, and acceptance, where mutual growth is possible, alone and together, at the same time.

Actually, mainstream society has tied love and sex together so closely that they’ve become one thing: love is what gets you to sex. After sex, the two people are bound to each other. No other such friendships are possible. Even though love is a path to freedom. It’s the path to becoming the best version of yourself you can be. Now it has become a way to tie down a person and end their freedom. Each person tames the other. Mainstream society is based on the principle of controlling female sexuality. It’s said that the institution of marriage makes society strong. Love is used as a tool; controlling women and oppressing them is important to this. Yet, love is still the path to freedom. When a person is strong because of the love they feel, they can help others become strong like this. Then, two people can live together like companions of mutual respect, freedom, and acceptance. It’s just that society never teaches this love, and childhood doesn’t prepare people to love like this, either. Thinking it’s love, people live out social conditioning and repeat clichés. 

If we listened to what Adivasi culture teaches us about love, we would learn not only how to love each other but how to love all living beings in nature. But mainstream society is attacking this way of life from every which direction. Adivasis are fighting for their survival. We are trying to find our way forward by relying on our way of life and our values. It’s foolhardy to think that mainstream society provides any alternative to create better human relations. I can’t see one. Society is full of conceit, arrogance, and hubris. Nevertheless, I’m sure that one day love will win out.

If love is one day lost from the world, then poetry will be too. If poetry remains, it’s only due to the power of love. Poetry has made me a better person. And it’s given me the courage to believe that loving like a tree is possible.

11 December 2023

Chainpur, Gumla (Jharkhand)

What follows are poems from Loving Like a Tree.

People Running Scared from Elephants

during the night the elephant herd
descends into the fields
the whole village appears
beating drums flashing torches

but now the holy cow
has returned to terrorize us
bullets are fired hostages kept
the rest of the village flees into the forest

so why are people fleeing?
where are they running to
when there’s no more forest left to hide in

why don’t those who are fleeing from the wild elephants
also try to save themselves from
the animals coming from the concrete jungles?

What Will They Do?

whether it’s land nature or nation
if middlemen get their hands on it
what will they do?
pretending to save it
they’ll sell it —
it’s just what they do

What Killers Want

smug killers
claiming they’re there to restore peace
come quietly
and murder quite nicely

those who
watch all these murders in silence
complain about all the buildings destroyed
during the protests afterwards
they scold
when we murder you all so peacefully
why can’t you manage to protest
without destroying buildings?

Intoxicated

we got drunk on mahua liquor
they got drunk on religion

we started dancing
they started killing

Why I’m Killed

when I’m in love with someone
I forget their caste religion and race
so that’s
why I’m killed

Violence

we were minding our own business
living our lives
you too were minding your own business
living your lives

you saw us
we’re black
black is a symbol of evil
that’s what you read
in the holy books

you grew afraid
you lashed out at us
we saw your violent ways
we took sand in our hands
look we have to defend ourselves
you’ve made us violent
like you

Rain

she named him Rain
and in her love
he grew into a tree

Tree

I wanted to find a bird
but each time I found a tree

When Love Becomes a Tree

we’re in love
but why don’t you act like a lover?

he replies—
if there was a tree in love
it would hardly look like a lover

you’re like a little bird
every day you fly somewhere
I’ll stand here firm like a tree
waiting for you to return
when you come back chittering like a bird
I listen in silence

but if the bird doesn’t come back some day?
if it dies?

then I’ll die slowly
whenever you are in the land
of the dead
I’ll come find you

and what about all those people
you love me in their own way?

I’m grateful for
all those who love you in their own way
it’s not easy to love
I mean
they’ve forgotten to love the earth

I looked at him for minutes
thinking
how in the Adivasi world
can love become a tree?

To Remain Two in Love

why do people
want to become one in love?
why can’t they acknowledge difference
and remain two?
wanting to unite they make love
a weapon
and through their lives
attack their lover
when can love give power to the lover?

some people here
want to make the nation one
those who don’t comply are killed
in the name of love
in wanting everyone to be united
they lose their humanity

if we could remain two in love
learn things slowly and then always
express wonder for the other
appreciate their power
point out their flaws
even if our journeys are separate
we’d be together

sometimes it seems
he knows more about me than I do
to learn more about myself
I go toward him and to learn more
about himself he comes toward me