PLACHIMADA(the anti Coke war)

I sit beside this well of despair,
Amidst fallen twigs and dry leaves
With an empty battered pitcher
And a son of the soil’s lost cause.

A droplet of moist kindness, is
All I ask for my parched throat
And cracked lips, yet you deny me
Knowing I am helpless to stave off
Your multi national greed for green
Bucks, you complacent giant, you
Know that my protests are too feeble
To jolt you, that I cannot take my fight
Beyond a certain point; having haggled
Hard, you have purchased all my would
Be protectors; bureaucrats, politicians,
Even courts, this country’s middle class
Seduced long ago with fat pay packets,
A generation of dummies poisoned by
Your sweetened drink; my fields made
Infertile by your cadmium sludge charity,*
I know you have come to conquer these
Brown shores with your brown drink.

In another century you came seeking pepper,
Cardamom and my native land’s riches in
Another guise and stayed back to rule us
For a couple of centuries, breaking backs
Of our existence, forever you thought; but
When you left, our resilient brown hands
Clawed us out of the depths of misery into
Which you had sunk us; now that we have
Slowly begun to stand erect, you are here
By stealth in your MNC garb with bribes,
And the same old divide and rule strategy,
Speaking of development and growth you
Lure my country’s ‘haves’ into your webs
Of deceit, myopic fools have swallowed your
Globalized bait, hooked on to it, they dangle
Like clowns in three piece suits and double
Knotted designer ties; but I am a true son of
The soil, last time I faced your cannons and
Rifles with just bows, arrows and spears,**
You have more sophisticated weapons now,
AK 47s, SLRs and missiles; mine are same
Old rudimentary, but I’ll not give up without
A fight, howsoever symbolic; I’ll never stand
By and watch my mother’s rape, alive;
With my parched throat, I’ll fight you
Till the last breath of my brown soul,
My tribal instincts can see through your
Deceit; I am an ADIVASI! VANDE MATARAM!
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16/04/08 R Jayachandran

* Coco Cola supplied sludge (waste) from their
bottling plant to the villagers as free fertilizer;
it contained dangerous levels of the carcinogen
cadmium.
**The Kurichers, adivasi tribals of Wayanad hills, Kerala, India,
fought valiantly under Pazhazi Raja against the British.
Note: In 2002, the adivasis of Plachimada village in Kerala
State, India began a struggle against the exploitation of
ground water reserves by Coco Cola’s bottling plant at
Plachimada resulting in the plant being finally
shut down. The matter is now pending before the supreme
court of India. The Plachimada issue has grabbed the attention
of anti-globalizationists world wide and many have expressed
solidarity with the adivasi villagers’ just struggle. This poem is
a tribute to them and to the anti – globalization moment.