Take up the Brown Man’s burden—
To be a guest at home—
To greet your kin as strangers
To stumble as you roam;
How long have you been missing?
How hollow is your grave?
What are they thinking of you?
Half master and half slave
Take up the Brown Man’s burden—
To be a rootless bud—
To wield your captor’s language
To barter with your blood
That rickshaw man your uncle?
He has no shoes nor clothes
That beggar there your cousin?
He shares your lips and nose
Take up the Brown Man’s burden—
To rise just as you sigh—
To see the Himalayas
To hold your head up high
Perform a sacred qawwali
Do puja to the sun
Observe the Ganga water,
Each daughter and each son.
Take up the Brown Man’s power—
To wear no face of shame—
To smile away the sorrows
To share your people’s claim
An Indian touring India?
Tell Kipling you say hi
For Mowgli lives forever
But the white man’s eve is nigh
Author’s Statement:
Home. UChicago has changed my life in countless ways—but in no way as notable as when it enabled me to go home. Traveling to India bridged a gap that spans over six generations of migratory experience; it marked a reconnection with the land of my ancestors, the land of myself. This piece subverts Rudyard Kipling’s infamous “The White Man’s Burden,” redirecting its poetic structure and tone to defy colonial sentiment, funneling my fond experiences with ethnic reattachment and encouraging others to pursue the same. For displaced POC, finding home in our ancestral lands can prove financially, socially, and emotionally difficult. In many ways, it feels like paying for a crime we never committed. The reward, however, is marked by a newfound understanding of the world and a newfound understanding of self. I encourage everyone to visit their home—whatever that may be—and grapple with where they come from, where they are, and where they want to be.
Tyler Sookralli, Class of 2027, studied Hindi in New Delhi, India during Summer 2024, through the College’s Foreign Language Acquisition Grant program. Read his SITG Dispatch about the experience.