We too can’t breathe

Telugu Original: J.Goutham

English Translation: Akella Rajkumar

Black sea is roaring againBlack heart is surging and hurling the clawsBlack sky is burning ablazeBlack eyes are thundering with blood shot lightningsBlack summits are joined by some white clouds too Its raining raging thunder storms onThe white empire’s hate edificeThe distraught white wolf has sought refuge in some stray bunker Heartbroken humanity is kneeling downThe simmering anger of the victims around the world has turned the helpless wails into fierce war cries I can’t breathe.. I can’t breathe.. I can’t breathe George ! Like you..We too can’t breathe here.! The land we tilled breathed life into the plants The plants we sown breathed life to ripen the cropsThe canals we dug, breathed to help the harvest put the food on the tableThe path we trode, breathed to turn into a high wayThe brick we raised breathed to become a metropolis And yet George, like you,even our country doesn’t love usWe too can’t breathe here. The Corona upheaval made our bleeding feetwalk till the horizons of earth and sky Our shadows outran usOur lives outran our shadows In this incessant journey soaked in the trauma that embodies the migrant livesnot just the massive weights to carryon heads but their own unbearable existenceor of their little ones, awaiting bondings and thirsty affections, none can breathe Neither the body partsstrewn on the rail tracksNor the struggling souls bathed in bloodcan breathe  And yet George, like you,even our country doesn’t love usWe too can’t breathe here.  My father breathed his last in the untouchable ghettoAnd my mother followed suit without seeing anything changeAll my ancestors lay buried in their graves, unable to breathe when alive And yet George, like you,We too love our country. May we still be pariahs to sight our deitiesUnworthy still, to offer the sacred foodYet we persist to worship our gods and offer our prayers Gallows hang on our each breathBigotry morphs to enslave us over Still we love our beloved country and our thirty million deities And yet we will persevere to till our landssow our plants, lay our high waysand build our metros And that dwindling hopethat our babies of distant future may breathe freefuels our fight through gasping lives And perhaps George,Like your little Gianna portendedYou may just be changing the world. George, Like your Black seaWe too shall surge breathing free Where our freedom is throttledWe too shall roar with the ordination of our rights Against worlds and minds that foster the desires of enslaving usWe too shall rebel  armed with our constitution George! Like your Black sea.. We too shall call out all the loathing and hatred  We too shall chase all the oppressions into the bunker.

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