Bruised, but not Broken (poems)
-Challapalli Swarooparani
18. Child Sacs
Leading a hand-to-mouth
life The day before
yesterday We sold our
drudgery
Yesterday we pawned the pitcher and winnowing pan.
For a gulp of gruel we sold
The blood in our body
Our kidneys, for a handful of space
We pawn our hearts every day.
What else do we have to sell, Master?
That’s why
We sell motherly love by the kilo
For a morsel of food.
Like you do
We don’t have nations of our own
To en-cash on an emergency basis
Pledge in big, big banks.
The emaciated lives of
Cotton farmers and handloom workers ―
We have not even these, nothing
Except the raw female fruits of our womb
We have nothing to sell, Master.
Cotton farmers who bore
Bundles of affliction on your head
Trusting ineffectual seeds
Lambadi mothers
Who got ready your motherhood
To sell in international markets
Come on!
There is now
A novel economic policy
Specially for us
Now we have nothing to do with
Profits and subsidies
No sacks of money
It is enough if we have
Fertile ‘child’ sacs
That bloom tender buds
And become grains of rice
Even as we cradle infants
At our breasts.
God! Save our ‘child’ sacs.
(Telugu: “Bidda Sanchulu”, translated by Prof. G. Sheela Swarupa Rani, Dept. of English, Sri Padmavathi Mahila Viswavidyalayam and published in Mankenapoovu, an anthology of poems by the author, 2005.)
*****
(To be continued-)
Challapalli Swaroopa Rani hails from a village, Pyaparru, Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh. She is one of the five daughters of Mariyamma and Mantraiah. Went to Govt school in her place, completed her college at Guntur, the District head quarters. Then shifted to Hyderabad Central University and involved in student politics as a founder member of Ambedkar Student’s Association. She had her master’s in History & Archaeology, M.Phil in Medieval History and Ph. D in Regional Studies. Swaroopa has obtained Gold Medal in her Masters Examinations. She has got her first recruitment as Asst. Professor in History at Potti Sriramulu Telugu University, Srisailam and got selected as Associate Professor in Buddhist Studies in Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur. She lives in Vijayawada. Presently she is a Professor of Buddhist Studies and Director, Center for Women’s Studies in the same University. She is specialized in studies on Buddhism, Caste, Religion, Gender, Tribal Studies, People’s Culture and Literature.