Bruised, but not Broken (poems) – 31. The Rejected

Bruised, but not Broken (poems)

-Challapalli Swarooparani 

31. The Rejected

I’m the unlucky destitute
Who lost her mother in the labour room
A Rohingya Muslim,
A rejected human being
Carrying my burden of engulfing gloom
On my head
Wandering places.

A faceless man without even
A shameful piece of place
To sit, stand, place both my feet upon firmly
Or an endless sky to raise my head and look at,
Or a nation of my own.

I’m a Rohingya Muslim!
A born-terrorist who emerged
From the matrix of my mother
Clutching bullets in my fist
From a cursed race.

My birth is criminalized
I’m rejected, despairing.

I’m a Rohingya Muslim
My superscription is blood-smeared
I’m the river of sorrow
Flowing like an orphan
Between two countries.

I’m an unanswerable question
Hanging from the gallows of a crusade
An oozing wound.

In that zone where I am
Even pigeons of peace
Turn into blood-thirsty wolves.

I’m a Rohingya Muslim!
Not having a motherland
Or mother
An equivalent situation.

Pampered children
Of motherlands
And cosy citizens of the world
Remember
I’m a Rohingya Muslim!!

(Telugu: “Tiraskritudu”, translated by N. R.Tapaswi and Published on Face Book timeline of the author.)

*****

(To be continued-)

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Challapalli Swaroopa Rani

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.

Swaroopa Rani is poet, story writer, columnist and free lance Journalist. She is known activist and writer. She has started writing poetry during her college days on general aspects and shifted to write political issues of Dalits, Adivasis and Women. Swaroopa has published four books on theory(English and Telugu) and two anthologies(Telugu) and almost 100 articles in different journals. She has organized ten National and International Conferences and attended more than 100 seminars and conferences.  Swaroopa’s poetry is well received by the readers and her poetry is included in many collections and got translated into English, Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. Academic research is being carried on her works and her poetry is prescribed in curriculum at Graduation and Post-Graduation level.