[Aamjanata] An Indian Woman writes to Soni Sori

Dear Sister in Womanhood, Soni Sori

I am writing to you to let you know I received your letter. I read it. Your anguish reaches me. Your very important questions reach me. I am humbled at your ability to think beyond yourself in such dire circumstances. I had never heard of your school, but now I know it for one that nurtured a large heart and thinking mind. I know it as your school.

I have never suffered the horrors you speak of. I don’t think I can even imagine them with any accuracy, yet I have suffered in my own way, and I know the heart break of screaming an anguished “why?” into the dark void and receiving no human touch. I have no answers for your questions, because they are my questions too, but I hear you ask them, and I want you to know that your words didn’t sink into obscurity. They touched me. They matter. You matter. [...]

Read the whole letter here.

[Dantewada Vani] “I am Soni Sori, writing this letter from jail. My young daughter must be crying every night…”

I am Soni Sori, writing this letter from jail.
My young daughter must be crying every night.
Remembering me before she falls asleep.
Tell her: “Mom will be back soon”
I know I won’t be able to go back, I know this.
But she’s a child, calm her down.
We have to have her blood transfused every year, my young daughter,
She won’t have to bear this pain for many more days,
Without treatment, she will go quiet this year.

[...]

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[Poetry] As long as Soni Sori resides there, our development is impossible

We want development
More cars, more shopping malls,
more commodities,
And for that, we need industry,
And for industry, we need minerals,
and for minerals, we need the land of Bastar,
and as long as Soni Sori resides there,
our development is impossible

Read the full poem here