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F.M. Shahajinde

F.M. Shahajinde is a poet who lives in Sastur, a village in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra. He was born there, in 1946, in a family of a low-ranked Muslim jati. When he was two years old, his father was murdered in communal violence. Despite social and economic obstacles, he completed school and college education, obtained a masters degree in Marathi, and secured a job as a lecturer in a small-town college. Inspired by Dalit Marathi literature, and the writings of Phule and Ambedkar, he started writing poetry in the early 1970s. His first two books of poetry, self-published in 1979 and 1986, received state literary prizes; and some of his poems are included in the Marathi syllabi of some universities and secondary school boards.

''Shahajinde describes his poetry as a sincere attempt to represent his experiences and emotions, as a person witnessing the denigration of democratic values which he cherishes. Like much of Dalit Marathi poetry, his poems are marked by candour that is striking within the frame of Marathi literature; but this effect is difficult to re-create in English.''

Published book

 * Nidharmi (Poem) Antarbharti Publication, Aurad Shahajani-1980
 * Mee-too (Novel) Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur-1984
 * I-U (Novel) English Translated by Ashok Bhupatkar-2016
 * Shetkari (Marathwadi Poem) Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur-1986
 * Saaransh (Critics) Antarbharti Publication, Aurad Shahajani-1987
 * Aadam (Poem) Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur-1991
 * Gwahee (Poem) Dileepraj Prakashan, Pune-1996
 * Etyarth (Critics) Dileepraj Prakashan, Pune-1987
 * Anubhav (Essay) Sugawa Prakashan, Pune-1997
 * Marathawadyateel Kavita, (Poem) Nrmal Prakashan- Nanded-1999
 * Wakal (Article) Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur-2004
 * Muslim Marathi Sahitya: Parampara, swaroop ani lekhaksoochi-2004
 * Purchundi, (Edited) Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur- 2005
 * Muthbhar Mati: Aashay wa Anwyartha, Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur--2008
 * Pratyay (Article) Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur--2013
 * Zhombani, (Poem) Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur- 2013
 * Muslim Marathi Sahitya: Prerana ani swaroop, Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur-2014
 * Shabdbimb, Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur-2016
 * Dkhalpatra (Ucoming) Bhoomi Prakashan, Latur

Chear
President- 1st Marathawada Yuvak sahitya sammelan- Jalna-1986

President- 1st MuslimMarathi Sahitya Sammelan, Solapur-1990

President- 11th Ankur Sahitya sammelan- Bulndana-1991

President- 1st Latur jilha Marathi Sahitya Smmelan, Nilanga District Latur-1999

President- 5th Purogami Marathi Sahitya Smmelan, Kandhar, District Nanded-2000

President- 5th Kavi Sammelan 29th Marathwada Sahitya Smmelan, Udngovn, Aurangabad-2007

President- 3rd Shekoti  Sahitya Smmelan, Dhargal, Goa-2007

President- Kavi Sammelan 32th Marathwada Sahitya Smmelan, Murud, District latur-2010

President- Kavi Sammelan 37th  Marathwada Sahitya Smmelan, Jalna-2016

Poems F.M. Shahajinde
No clothes on the body (1979)    

Grabbing diversity by the scruff of the neck

twirling the head of unity

greedy

confused

wild

a multitudinous, maddened, dreamy herd

each one carrying an invisible, one-stringed instrument

with Himalayan honesty

sagging with the sacredness of all the holy places

roaring that the cream called Hindustan is ours

was moving towards me

Bewildered

aghast

dazzled

by this Indian Ocean torrent

I cleared out communism from my throat

started sweating patriotism!

wiped my face with the handkerchief of progressiveness

adjusted my clothes of secularism

and with head bent started walking behind that procession

One or two one-stringed instruments of that caravan lagged behind –

whether they were tired or they had been dragged against their wishes, who knows!

''But I was happy! As I had some company''

I started walking with them

They looked at me questioningly

I gave a smile of non-violence and said,

“I don’t have any one-stringed instrument!”

“Who are you?”

''“Me? I am an insignificant resident of this representative State”''

We’ll talk later, the one-stringed instruments said and moved ahead

And I entered the cultured city enriched by tradition!

Roaming around its lanes and by-lanes

I saw a temple of Basaveshwar1

Glittering in the formless light of the goddess of electricity

resplendent in the middle of its hall was a

large, highly decorated elephant-god with ash-smeared forehead!

With piercing eyes I asked:

“Do you recognise me or not?

Dasrao Guruji used to sing hymns for you so sweetly!”

He deliberately avoided recognising me

''Let it be! If he does not recognise me so be it!''

After all a god is a god!

By then someone had shoved some prasad into my palms

Putting it into my mouth and swallowing sheepishness, I stepped out

So I came to M. Gandhi chowk

There I saw a school, so I stepped in

There was a dome

Within it a throne

On it, in the form of Tukaram

Playing cymbals, Ganpatibappa was engrossed in a bhajan

Without causing disturbance, I said Ram-Ram and stepped out

Wandering around, arrived in a lane

Where Ganpati was seated, wearing the sacred thread of some mandal

Lying nearby was a sack of gulal

Arre, this is the same red powder

That is smeared in my village on all after the flag-hoisting!

When the prasad was being distributed

I remembered the gulal-smeared Arya Samaji lecturer

Who had refused to garland a statue of Ambedkar

By then I had scrutinised closely

for some sign of a national stream

After the coils of many memories had been untangled

I decided that each should take his own one-stringed instrument

and head for his own herd!

The mullah was issuing the call to prayer

I went home and hung the clothes of secularism on a peg

Washed myself and started walking towards the masjid

Till then I had made the pretence of praying three-four times

was going to do the same now…

When half-way down the road I realised…

I have no clothes on my body.

Arre, what is this?

I am where I was before!

By now the mullah would have finished namaz

All the worshippers would be busy pouring ridicule on the ‘other’ people

If something should happen on the auspicious occasion of Anant Chaturdarshi2

What would I do?

Looking up casually at the sky

I saw that from Hastinapur’s temple-towers

minarets

and columns

Total Revolution was pouring down

like Bhagirath’s Ganga!

Should it come flowing this way

I should nicely wash my just hung clothes of secularism

But till then

what is wrong in resting against the torso of a python

and sleeping like Kumbhakarna?

Drought: 1972-73

Dog-tired the fields lie barren

unclothed

A dusty naked black road

heads somewhere

holding on to rubble

Nowhere in sight

is there soil without hoof marks of cattle

The sun hammers everywhere

relentlessly, stinging

All kin are seeking work to fill the pit in the stomach

No birds are singing

All trees are dead

Nature too has initiated gross misappropriation

Like Indians!

Exams, copying, poverty, degrees, influence, job –

nothing matters!

On a fetid matter like singing of the Vande Mataram

the national flag is burnt like a piece of cloth

Everyone is drought-struck

and my dead mind potters around with the Constitution

The hopes and desires harboured before Independence –

are they shared by all

or am I the one without any kin?