From Ratnakar to Valmiki
I was Ratnakar long ago — I left behind banditry.
In anger and in love I abandoned that life;
from the funeral pyre’s flame I lit a lamp,
and reverently gathered the soil of the charnel ground.
I do not know the churnings of the world, yet I rejoice in nectar;
now, parched, this Valmiki-duck will bend to drink —
it dips its beak into the full pitcher,
where milk and poison are mixed together.
