"Hello. I had a wonderful meal of millet khichuri with prawn pickle. So decided to go off duty."
"You take an off so easily? You face no hassles?"
"Production is somewhat down these days. A storm is brewing. So I'm storing up some energy."
"Sarita, isn't this what you were also saying?"
"I was explaining to you that work is down in our place. And there's a saying, when you catch a slide, build up for unemployed times."
"Ha!Ha! I've been out of work for three months now. So there are no hurdles to speech. I'm listening a lot. Am reading a lot too."
"Ha! You talk like being unemployed is a freedom."
"I'm not making it out to be freedom. I'm practicing freedom. Freedom is also a game. The more you practice it, the better it expresses itself. You too are always practicing its ways."
"In China, I've heard, young workers write poems on mobile phones and send them to each other. These poems play out all facets of living."
"To snatch time and write songs, in joy and stubbornness, is a revolt."
"A few weeks back a newspaper carried a portrait of a young worker who took out an hour everyday to write poetry. The worker was quoted as saying that in his poetry he is trying to investigate and understand the import of the word 'equality'."
"This is revolt."
"Whenever it seems that production has come to a sudden halt, it is usually, actually, a swell of the hum between us -- of 1200 to 1500 people. There are words, there is a rhythm, and a feeling runs through us, but it is inaudible. Not heard. But you sway to it. It can only be lived."
"Have been to many places
Have drunk water in many places
It has been hard on my belly
But have learned to be carefree
With strangers."
"Time shortens
at times
Maybe we have to make new time
Friends, together
we take a holiday
to bring the horizon close."
"Let me tell you a story about drawing in the horizon. I've been running into this one good fellow repeatedly over the last five days at the teashop. The first day he was full of invectives, exclamations, and deep sighs about life! The next day, he and his 120 co-workers had stopped work, and he said with a wry smile, 'Life sucks'. Then on the third day, workers in two more factories of the same company stopped work."
"And then? Now what did he say then?"
"We met. He said, 'It's a hot day. Let me treat you to a good cup of tea.' And then, sipping his tea, he said, 'Do you sense our heft now?'"
"Three days, big fluctuations. Whenever we meet others, it's amidst intersecting arcs of the fluctuations of many."
"Poetry and song strike at the intervals between these intersections. They are stitches in the ascending and descending notes of these fluctuations."
"How is your good fellow amidst so many with such ease?"
"Tell me. I've been out of work for three months. I'm inside poetry now. I have time to listen. Don't hesitate. Tell me all your tales and hows."
"Tales, hows, and poetry. Three words with a lot of heft. The fluctuations, collisions, and entwined solos of these three runs through us, and it transforms the scent of the milieu."
"Far from where I was born,
and with whom I grew up
Making new
relations and friends
My arms open."
Faridabad Majdoor Samachar (Faridabad Workers’ News)
Issue # 347
May 2017
Page 1: Tales, Hows, and Poetry
Page 2: Conversations in and with thousands in transient groups
Page 3: Commoning; Not to become Targets; 1st of May
Page 4: Many Thoughts, in conversation with Many
PDF enclosed.
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