評論
打印
Swami Agnivesh (Vepa Shyam Rao), champion of India’s indentured labourers, died on September 11th, aged 80.
印度契約勞工斗士斯瓦米·阿涅維什（韋帕·施拉姆·拉奧）于9月11日逝世，享年80歲。
The hindu life-stage of sanyasa, or renunciation, is traditionally the last. The elderly lay aside their material possessions and take up a spiritual existence, perhaps in some remote ashram in the forest or the hills. Vepa Shyam Rao, as he was then, was only 30 when he took the title of Swami, or monk, put on saffron robes and travelled to Haryana, in northern India. His mission was still not quite in focus, but his philosophy was.
傳統上，印度教徒人生的最后階段是遁世，或者說是棄絕。老年人把他們的物質財產放在一邊，開始一種精神上的生活，也許是在偏遠的森林或山區的道場。當時的韋帕·施拉姆·拉奧在30歲時獲得了斯瓦米（修道士）的頭銜，穿上藏紅色的僧袍，前往印度北部的哈里亞納邦。他的使命還不完全清晰，但他的人生觀已經明確了。
He had gladly renounced his life as a lawyer and lecturer in management studies in Kolkata, reducing what he owned to his robes and a bagful of books. His career and his things he could lightly put aside. But the world and its problems, no. His life from that moment was focused on some of the hardest parts of that world. The stone quarries outside Delhi, for example, where men, women and children were paid five rupees a day to dig out, shift and break great blocks of stone, as though they were beasts of burden.
他欣然放棄了在加爾各答當律師和管理學講師的生活，只剩下一件長袍和一大包書。他可以輕松地把他的事業和他的東西放在一邊。但是世界和它的問題，不行。從那一刻起，他的生活就集中在世界上一些最艱難的地方。例如，在德里郊外的采石場，男人、女人和孩子每天拿5盧比來挖出、搬運、打碎大塊的石頭，他們就好像是負重的畜類。
The unventilated, deafening carpet workshops where labourers were sometimes chained to the looms and locked in at night. Silk factories where hands already white with blisters plunged repeatedly into scalding water to reel the fibres from the cocoons, and tanneries where arms were burned with toxic chemicals. Outside his penetrating gaze, but mentioned in whispers, were the punishments for working slowly: a blow on the head from a brick, a beating while tied to a neem tree, or simply non-payment of the pitiful few coins that were supposed to have been earned.
在通風不良、震耳欲聾的地毯車間，工人們有時被鎖在織布機上，晚上被鎖在里面。在絲綢工廠里，工人已經滿是水泡的手不斷地投入滾燙的水中，從蠶繭中提取纖維，還有皮革廠，工人的手臂被有毒化學物質燒傷。在那穿透性的目光之外，阿涅維什還秘密得知對慢工的懲罰：用石頭砸頭，綁在楝樹上打，或者僅僅是不付那少得可憐的幾枚工人本該掙來的硬幣。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
