There was a time in Kerala, even till recently, when wherever we looked, there were paddy fields, green and golden, stretching into distances. Ploughing, sowing, weeding and harvesting were occupations of people and rice was in plenty. The poor people engaged in this occupation were paid in kind and not in money because even landlords did not have money. These poor peasants and paddy workers did not get enough to live from this occupation. They had to live year round with the grain received as wages in a harvesting season. They wanted a rise in the quantity of paddy paid as wages to them. This was the famous Reapers’ Strike in Kerala, led by Communist Parties. They did reap but refused to remove the harvested sheaths from the field to the landlord’s premises for being thrashed. It was the first of such struggles in Kerala, and in India too. The landlords stooped their heads in failure but they retaliated through their goons, and there were rapes, beatings, persecution and even firing. It was the first times males in villages had to hide away and women were raped. Bands of children vanished for ever, their tender bodies buried in sand to be trod upon later. Law and order and decency disappeared from the land. The poet was a little child then but grew up listening to these stories in his peasant village. There were even incidents of educated radical young men leading these peasant strikers against their own fathers who were landlords. This poem is dedicated to one such young revolutionary who abandoned a promising career in Malayalam film acting after graduation. Half of what is described in this poem is truth, and the rest is imagination and fancy which is a logical extension of realities. The poem is envisioned and traced through the eyes and mind of a young peasant hiding in woods for long, secreting from authorities.
Written by P.S.Remesh Chandran in 1984 and first recorded by him in the same year, this poem was first published in internet in 2010. Re-recorded, digitized and released as video by him in 2014.
You Tube Link For Download: http://youtu.be/TD9pfABDlMo
For lyrics, visit http://sahyadrimalayalam.blogspot.com/
Author’s Blog:
http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
You Tube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Google + Page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+PSRemeshChandran/posts
