For a Fistful of Self-Esteem

I know not when I was born,

but I was slain in this land

thousands of years ago.

The theory of reincarnation

is unknown to me,

yet I’m born again and again

in the very place where I

once perished.

My body melted into this soil,

merged with the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Thanks to the stream of my tears,

perennial rivers coursed through this land.

My blood vessels secreted life’s elixir,

nourishing this earth with crops and bloom

I was Sambuka in the Treta Yuga;

my name was Kanchikacherla Koteshu,

twenty-two years ago.

My birthplace?  Kilvenmani,

Karamchedu, Neerukonda –

names etched in pain.

Chunduru –

branded on my heart  with ploughshares

by merciless, bigoted landlords.

Chunduru is no noun –

it is a pronoun now.

Today, every heart is a Chunduru,

a smouldering wound.

I am not one wound but a multitude,

a cluster of scars.

For ages, I have had no freedom

in this so-called independent nation.

Insults, molestation, rapes, torture –

I have endured them all,

yet raised my head in quest of dignity.

In this land of caste-crazed bigots,

among rich, bloated, arrogant demons,

my mere existence is a rebellion.

I perish endlessly to survive.

Don’t call me a victim.

I am a martyr –

Lord Siva, who bore the infliction

of famine to gift the world prosperity.

I kicked the sun on its head

to set the upended dawn aright.

I am forging swords of slogans

in the furnace of my heart.

No kind words or tears for me.

I’m no victim but a martyr,

a fluttering flag of defiance.

Shed no tears.

If you must do something,

bury me in the city’s heart;

I shall rise as a bamboo forest,

resonant with the music of life.

Print my corpse on the cover page

of this nation’s book.

I shall spread through its pages,

and give birth to a radiant future.

Let me into your hearts.

I will blaze into a tussle of flames,

and be reborn again and again

in this very land.

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