Bruised, but not Broken (poems)
-Challapalli Swarooparani
24. Mother Curry
You’re the consumers of
Ghee-mixed food, my lords.
Till now, none has taught us, Sirs,
That food has caste
And gruel, religion.
I swear on my mother
In our abject poverty
It was this curry, Sirs,
That saved our race
From hunger pangs
And filled our bodies
With stamina and strength.
I must tell you the truth
A beef of two rupees
Mixed with two packs of rosella leaf
Filled up the bellies of a family.
As some city-dwellers are prone
To describe their own mother
As a maid servant
When she visits them
This mother curry too is cursed
To be known only by code names
Like ‘Jasmine’ or ‘Right-o’
But never by its real name!
That very name spells shame, Sirs.
On a festive day
We too yearn
To devour sweets and savouries
It is hard enough to
Fill our steaming pots
With a brinjal fry
A couple of tomatoes
Bought from the shop-keeper.
Where, then, is the possibility, Sirs
Of a costly pudding?
People cherish different heavens
If you treasure pickled mango and chilly,
Taste them day after day
You’re practising a gourmet’s art.
When we preserve pieces of dry meat
On a net slung from our roofs and cook them
With cucumber pieces
To eat in times of hunger
That’s our ….. Sirs.
Returning home
After back-breaking labour
We nibble at roasted dry fish And eat a plate of watery-rice That’s when
Heaven descends on our ghetto.
While your mixed condiments
Turn into curry-luggage
And transcend continents
Why do you fill our bowls with bullets, Sirs?
When I eat a morsel with beef
To quench hunger’s fire
How is it that you stand up
To squeeze the very life out of me?
(Telugu: “Tallikoora”, translated by N. R.Tapaswi and published in Bahujana Keratalu, October, 2017.)
*****
(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.