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Archive for June, 2012

Chalapathi Vijayavardhanam

Friday, June 15th, 2012

The gallows

wears a janeu.

It's a pandit

that offers sandhya vandana and chants vedas;

It is 

a lighthouse

in the heart of manu dharma;

It's the venom bearing fang

of the four-headed

Hindu serpent king;

In the shade of its hood

the Hawala-wallahs enact their orgies of greed.

Chalapathi, Vijayavardhanam

struggle in its venomous fangs !

You might disagree

but Sriman Gallows Shastri

has limitless love

only for the untouchables..!

 

My translation of the Telugu poem 'Chalapathi Vijayavardhanam', from the collection of poetry 'Sivasagar Kavitvam', by K. G. Satyamurthy ('Sivasagar').

Gantela Vijayavardhana Rao and Sathuluri Chalapathi Rao were a couple of Dalit convicts who had been sentenced to death by a court in Guntur in 1995. For more details, please read this news story.  

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