Bruised, but not Broken (poems)

-Challapalli Swarooparani 

20. The Filthy

My mother is an ogre
She neither bathed me fondly
Nor cajolingly fed me
Neither stitched me a silk skirt
Nor braided flowers in my hair.

My mother
Sun-burned, soot-faced
With hands
Eroded in the cleaning.

When other mothers stealthily
Gave their children pocket-money, For asking a rupee she delivered
A noisy good slap on my back
And berated my father.
Our goblin.

If I came home bruised
Dripping blood
Instead of taking me in her arms
And applying medicine
She used to curse god:
‘Oh! My God!
May your eyes turn into mire!’

This witch
Does not revere
Either her husband or God.

My mother is not
‘A mother of love and affection’
She is an ox at the mill
Who does not possess that knowledge Which makes a mother take
A child to her lap and feed it.

Her language has become coarse Listening to the abuse of the entire village.

When I think of my mother
Instead of limbs
The toilet, broom
A plate of cow dung
Come to mind.

The mother, crowned, bejewelled
In a silk sari
Is in no way related to us.

My scavenger mother:
Who cleanses society’s squalor with Her hands
But is abandoned
Like a filthy utensil.

While the needs of the rich
Glitter and glow
Like sacrificial fire
What is this tag of untouchability That dangles round
My mother’s poverty?

(Telugu: “Asuddha”, translated by Prof. G. Sheela Swarupa Rani, Dept. of English, Sri Padmavathi Mahila Viswavidyalayam, and published in Saranga, Web Journal, March, 2018.)

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(To be continued-)

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