{"id":64958,"date":"2015-10-12T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=64958"},"modified":"2015-10-12T07:29:34","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T06:29:34","slug":"forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/10\/forgotten\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sumeet<\/a>

Sumeet Grover<\/p><\/div>\n

For the Dalit People of India<\/em><\/p>\n

Ten years ago you gathered
\ninside a temple before a taller than
\nlife-sized statue of an ancient prince
\nin the hope that you, whom we accused of
\ncoming from a lineage dirtier than dust,
\ncould now become free roamers of his
\nspirited kingdom where all are equal
\nand all are cherished.<\/p>\n

You shaved your heads and wore
\nmaroon robes and within hours as you
\ntouched the brass prince’s feet for blessings,
\nthree thousand of you cast aside
\nyour putrid skins that we had vowed
\nto never touch.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the touch of a metal statue
\nis more healing than our human touch,
\nwhich holds a resolve in its finger tips
\nto be as punishing as thorns.<\/p>\n

We called you outcasts but we
\nforgave you as Dalit Buddhists; your low
\ncaste was disgrace but conversion resilience
\nto blow away our hatred.
\nTen years on, your lives cultivate
\naround the smoke of thick incense wood
\nas we have forgotten you and forgotten
\nto ask your names even once.
\n_________________________________<\/p>\n

Sumeet Grover is the founder of <\/em>Global Poetry<\/a>, dedicated to creativity, human dignity, dialogue and global citizenship. He is a winner of the Portico Brotherton Open Poetry Prize 2014 and was shortlisted for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize in 2014 & 2015. He has authored two books of poetry:<\/em> House Arrest & Disobedience (2015<\/em>) and<\/em> Change (2011<\/em>). Grover is a member of the<\/em> TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> and of the<\/em> TRANSCEND Art & Peace Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the Dalit People of India<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}