The Nishad Boy

In the shadowed forest,

a Nishad boy sculpts his guru

from the wet earth of forbidden dreams

mud kneaded with the salt of unyielding perseverance,

born into the wrong caste, the wrong epoch,

in a country where birth still decides the boundaries of a life.

He becomes the greatest archer alive,

without a single lesson from sanctioned lips,

against every edict carved in blood.

One day the clay figure comes alive,

smiling the chilled smile of power

One thumb, it demands.

One small tribute

to safeguard the prince’s unchallenged throne,

to keep the superior castes unthreatened.

The knife glints.

Blood falls like deliberate rain on parched leaves.

The boy does not scream.

He turns toward the deep wilderness

far from the festering cities

And history, guilty in its silence, complicit in its enmity.

keeps returning to the forest,

where every age leaves another boy behind,

and finds the same name waiting. Eklavya.