Bruised, but not Broken (poems)
-Challapalli Swarooparani
19. Wild Lily
I am a piece of black flesh
Formed into sculpture
How could I have a heart when
I am all flesh?
In the mirrors of my inadequate blouse
Hang reflections of
Conspiracies, across time, which
You have plotted against me.
I know that
The sound of crude bangles
On my wrists is unlike
The delicate sound of
Gold ones.
It is an odd sound that carries
The music of my agony.
Have you seen the anklets on my feet?
They are shackles of slavery
Which keep me bound ―
However hard I try to run away from this prison ―
To the thorny path.
Since dawn, searching hills and valleys
I bring forth pots of honey and baskets of tamarind
Selling them in the shop
I am, yet, unable to buy
Even a coarse sari to cover my body
A piece of cloth
For the back
One for the front
For being born a woman.
As I pick my way
Through a rocky life
It hardly matters to you:
You continue to write erotic poetry
Describing parts of our bodies.
My body that has been roughened
As I roam day and night
In rain and sun, amidst stones and bushes.
When it glitters on your walls
An oil painting ―
My heart, shrunk with shame
My entrails that lie flattened
In hunger
Against my backbone,
Shudder.
How many times,
Along with mahua flowers and sandalwood,
The forest’s beauties become
Commodities for the market?
Had my forest-mother known that
Not content with using
Grandfather Ekalavya’s thumb
As your nib
You would burn our prime youth in fire
She would have squirted poison
Instead of chlorophyll.
(Telugu: “Kondamalli”, 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.