The Untouchable Line Poem by Bishnupada Sethi

A line drawn in dust,
not with chalk or rope,
but with silence,
with separate cups,
with a well that swallowed thirst.

We stood outside the temple,
bare feet on hot earth,
watching shadows of the chosen
touch the god we could only name
from a distance.
Our offerings—
a handful of wilted marigolds—
never crossed the threshold.

In the market,
tea came in two flavors:
ours and theirs.
The clay cup cracked under the weight
of being untouched.
At the landlord's table,
we ate from plates
no one else would lift,
then washed the ground
as if our hunger had sinned.

Even death had a gatekeeper.
The cremation ground—
government land, they said—
belonged to the pure.
So we carried our dead
to the sea's edge,
where waves erased footprints
faster than caste.

Sandals in hand,
umbrellas folded in rain,
we walked the margin
of every path,
heads bowed not in shame
but in practiced survival.

Yet under the banyan at midnight,
we whispered a different map:
a village without walls,
a well with one rope,
a god who looked back
at every face.

One day,
the dust will rise—
not to divide,
but to settle
on every foot the same.