STONEMASONS, MY FATHER and ME ************* Namdeo Laxman Dhasal

14.        Namdeo Laxman Dhasal   ********           Stonemasons, My Father and Me

Write an essay on the following

1.       Dhasal’s poem is a powerful indidctment of a caste ridden society

2.       How does Dhasal juxtapose the past and the present in a society anxious to engender stereotypes?

Namdeo Laxman Dhasal is a revolutionary Marathi poet and Dalit activist. He and his Dalit  friends founded the Dalit Panthers Movement.  Dhasal’s residence was close to Kamathipura, India’s largest colony of sex workers and the Durga Devi Udyan which was the niche of transgenders. In his poetry, he employs violent, underbelly, Kamathipura dialect and expressions and critics called it “bastard language”.  His poetry comes from the underbelly of Bombay city. We see a world of pimps, smugglers, crooks, petty politicians, opium dens, brothels and huts of the poor. Namdeo Laxman Dhasal is an iconoclast who wants to destroy the old, rotten customs and conventions that fetter people. Dhasal’s poem “Stonemasons, My Father and Me” is a powerful indictment of a caste ridden society. Dhasal belongs to an untouchable, downtrodden caste namely Mahar and led a life of extreme poverty and humiliation.

 In the poem “Stonemasons, My Father and Me”, the poet says that people often romanticize the stonemasons who belong to the downtrodden class and are untouchables. They say that the stonemasons give stones dreams. The stonemasons give stones flowers and inseminate stones and mix blood with stones. The stones are shaped into beautiful young ladies  and handsome young men, beautiful flowers, buds and flower vases. The poet again says that the stonemasons inseminate stones which means different types of new statues and beautiful gardens, palaces and towers and castles are born out of these stones by the work of skillful masons. Sometimes great sculptors carved wonderful images out of  the stones by sleepless hard work for  years. For example the mythological story of Pygmalion who shaped the life size statue of Venus and finally fell in love with his own creation.

 But these glowing tributes are meaningless. These poor masons are denied all the privileges of the  society. They are so poor that they cannot live in their own good houses. They are ostracized and marginalized. They  don’t get even decent wages.                                Kjt/-20-03-2020