I don't know when I was born but
I was killed on this very land thousands of years ago
punarapi jananam punarapi maranam
I don't know the karma theory but
I am taking birth, again and again, in the same place where I had died
My body dissolved in this land
And became the Ganga Sindh plain
When my eyeballs melted as tears
Perennial rivers flowed across this country
When my veins spurted minerals
This land became green and showered wealth
I was Shambhuka in the Treta Yuga
Twenty two years ago, my name was Kanchikacherla Kotesu
My place of birth is Kilvenmani, Karamchedu, Neerukonda
Now Chunduru is the name that cold-blooded feudal brutality
Has tattooed on my heart with ploughshares
From now on, Chunduru is not a noun but a pronoun
Now every heart is a Chunduru, a burning tumour
I am the wound of multitudes, the multitude of wounds
For generations, an unfree individual in a free country
Having been the target
Of humiliations, atrocities, rapes and torture
I am someone raising his head for a fistful of self-respect
In this nation of casteist bigots blinded by wealth
I am someone who lives to register life itself as a protest
I am someone who dies repeatedly to live
Don't call me a victim
I am an immortal, I am an immortal, I am an immortal
I am the poison throated one
Who swallowed the famine so that the world may have wealth
I am the sunrise standing on its head
It was I who kicked the Sun on the head
To make him stand erect
I am the one stoking slogans in my flaming heart's furnace
I don't need words of sympathy or tears of pity
I'm not a victim, I'm an immortal
I am the fluttering flag of defiance
Don't shed tears for me
If you can
Bury me in the middle of the city
I'll bloom as the bamboo grove that sings the melody of life
Print my corpse as this nation's cover
I'll spread as a beautiful future into the pages of history
Invite me into your hearts
I'll become a tussle of conflagrations
And rise again and again in this land.
My attempt to translate Kalekuri Prasad's Telugu poem 'piDikeDu aatmagauravam kOsam' (from the collection of poetry 'daLita kavitvam- 2' ; originally published in another collection 'manDutunna chunDuuru').
Tags: Kalekuri Prasad