The Shared Mirror

My land's not mine, they said,

I became a revolutionary

 

My body's not mine, they said,

I became a feminist

 

My village is not mine, they said,

I became a Dalitist

 

My nation is not mine, they said,

I became a minorityist

 

My region is not mine, they said,

I became a separatist

 

Finally,

I am not even human, they said,

Step away 

I've become a human bomb.

 

My attempt to translate Satish Chandar's Telugu poem 'yuga spruha' (''yuga spRha'). It can be found in his collection of poetry, 'aadiparvam', published in 2008. You can also read the original Telugu poem at Satish Chandar's blog here.  

Tags: Satish Chandar

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 9th, 2011 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Poetry, Telugu, Translations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.