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.)
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(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.