Bruised, but not Broken (poems)
-Challapalli Swarooparani
11. New Syllabus
The same age-old stale lessons
In all the leaves of the same old book
White sheets blacken from
The soot that is in his mind.
Children’s rhymes go thus
Rama is a good boy
Sita is a good wife
Come on my daughter!
Grind the dough!
Rhymes filled with language the colour of crows
No space for real heroes
But there are fake ones in our history lessons.
History is preoccupied with
His own likes and dislikes but not reality
His speech, full of contradictions, dogmas
That fill space.
And so, Mr History-less has now picked up a pen.
Pouring tar on useless history
He digs through layers of earth until
History emerges, rises
An angry blood, pure flesh.
(Telugu: “Guna ‘Paatham” translated by Dr G. Chenna Reddy, Dept. of English, Acharya Nagarjuna University.)
*****
(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.