Every day I thank you Mother
for I'm Tamil;
kin to Barathi and Kamban.
And yet now every day
I curse you Mother
because Akka is not my sister
nor is she my Devi.
Oh mother Cauvery
You flow through the lands
Of Tamil and Kannada.
Why then am I
the son of just one land?
I wish my mother had been a whore
and slept with men of all lands
So that I might have drunk the nectar
of Basavanna, of Tagore, of Basho
of Kalidasa, of Victor Hugo
of all the poets
from their own hands
instead of going about
with the begging bowl
of my unsullied birth.
