(k - Baba Amte - 1994) His Tribal Love Poem by Kannan G

When still a child
He loved the lives
Lost in the wild.
The Madia-Gonds
Had captured his mind –
He could now find
Behind a tribal’s naked frame
A zest for life
Much the same.
Behind their myopic eyes,
Behind their jungly cries
He could see sometimes
Creatures more cultured and wise.
He could see some civility
In their poverty.
As years went by
He had formed with them
A passionate tie.
He could no more let
A Madia die
For want of bread
Or by diseases infected.
He gave them as his own life
His son and his wife.
He gave them the plough
Gave them enough know-how.
Blackboards and syringe
To them he brought.
To save them from abuse
He fought and sought.
He revolutionized much
The tribal thought.
Still, steal their freedom
He never did.
He only fertilized a land
That lay arid.
His action grew from compassion.
He fears no failure.
Regrets no rejection.
So he built a bridge of understanding
Between a world developed
And a world developing.
As much as he lives for those lives
For them so much he also dares to die.
He will even damn the dam
He cannot but listen to their genuine cry.