We are unaware of the plans for our future in the same
way we were devoid of news of the approaching tidal waves.
Before we could even breathe consciously after we hadbeen struck, narrowly escaping suffocation, we arebeing thrown about again from one place to another.
One day the radio announces we could reside only at adistance of one kilometer away from the coast. Thenext day the same radio announces we could residethree hundred metres away.
Who are they talking about? About us? Why do they leave us out and talk about us? It’s a fortnight now. No one has asked us for our preference.
Parting with the coast, we have no jobs to do. To go away, far from our village, we like not.What we left behind us, is not only our lives andbelongings
But also a life-style, is it not?Why not those who talk about rights,Understand our rights?
Our house, our villageMeans not a vacuum of length and width dimensional construction. Is it not a place with a culture and a historicalbackground?
For us is a kovil of our own, a life aligned to that. When we go to a new place, will they embrace us in the rituals of their kovils? Or will we become a second class caste there?
A place in the jungles! A high elevation from the sea!
Would we sacrifice our children saved from the sea to the elephants?
Or would we be trapped at the frontiers and perish inthe war?
No one to offer answers to our fears?
Planned on paper, designed on computer, splashed like tidal waves
is an announcement lasting a second.
Schools reopen on tenth – an announcement?
Our house where we slept on twenty sixth and wokeafter
was not ours, said the tidal waves.
The place where we sleep without sleep, is not ours said an announcement.
To which schools? With which books? Wearing whatclothes?
When do I go? asks my child.
We demand the right to know
Information concerning us
Third Eye Local knowledge Activists. 8th January 2005.
