Bruised, but not Broken (poems)
-Challapalli Swarooparani
22. The Sacrifice
A perennial sacrifice
On the sacrifice pillar
Who made
This being stand thus?
Frightened
Just like me.
Breathless
The heart stifled
I am startled
By the bullet on my plate
When I sit down to eat.
Once again
The Bhagavat Gita1chases me
With a lathi
To the outskirts.
A Sanskrit sloka2
A mote that pricks the eye.
Puss oozes from the sore
As I stand, yet again
After many a fall.
I look at myself in the mirror
And all of a sudden
A trident pierces my side.
Manu3, Yagnavalkyas3,
Parasharas3, Aadi Sankaras3
All along the way, they keep an eye on
me Measure my every word and footstep
With weighing stones.
A machine in my mind
Watches, guards my thoughts
Someone splices my body
And rolls in thePurushasuktam4.
An utter suffocation
A primordial prohibition
Clutches my throat
An ancient wound throbs
Still.
Where am I?
On which island?
Where is my Jambudvipa5?
Why are there holes in my holy book,
The Constitution?
My friends in deed
Mythri6, Karuna7, Prajna8
Where are they?
Buried under which temple?
Yes
We need to search
The nation again needs recreation
Old questions
Need new answers
Till then
The sacrifice continues…
1. Bhagavat Gita, one of the Hindu scriptures, 2. Sloka, a chant, 3. Manu, Yajnavalkya, Parasara, AadiSankara are some of the Hindu law givers of ancient India, 4.Purushasuktam, part of the Rigveda, the Hindu scripture in which the origin of caste system is narrated, 5. Ancient indigenous name of India, 6. Loving kindness, 7. Compassion, 8.Wisdom.
(Telugu: “Yajnam”, translated by Prof T Bharathi, Dept of English, Sri Padmavathi Mahila University and published in Kavi Sandhya , October, 2016.)
*****
(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.