Our country India, the unfortunate land
‘He is doing this and he makes us do this’
With this idea people of this land
Live sans mightiness sans brightness-this land
Makes the people linger around them like mad dogs
It’s a holy land of currency notes

Yes! These People with hands and legs lymph and blood
Provocation and indignation, honor and virility
Why do they live like wooden toys and useless dolls?
Because our country India, is the unfortunate land
Our country, India is a country with hundreds, thousands
And lakhs of herds of sheep
Though heard as if unheard; though seen as if unseen;
Though had a mouth which could not speak
In houses and palaces: in mahals and temples
In nests and huts; wherever is possible
The legs are used to runaway to escape
The hands, used only to fold in respect
But never knew to raise the fist

Except whimpering
The eyes could never turn red to drop embers
The veins could never flow indignation except cowardice
With spinal cards that never support standing straight
The motherland moving with crores of cadavers

When it is going to dawn
Kicking away the sleep
Washing and wiping the skin superficially
Gluing plastic smiles on the flowers
Suppressing and stamping the voices of your hearts
If someone spits on you, wiping it off
Throwing a smile, having a peg
Retreat to your home and rush into the covering sheet
Give birth to worms like you and grow them
Your lives are the lives of mites that die every moment
Why do you have any shame or why do you have modesty?
For you all to sell the chastity to live
Why do you have a life span of a century?

To carry you on it
The land shivers and quivers at every second
What is the history of any party?
Let any government come, what happens?
The wretched that could not get a share,
The muddleheaded, change two parties a day
One leader will do rigging, the cadre votes;
Chide, compel and ask the leaders standing on the seat
How many votes are there from your area?
How many votes in fact you get here?
Ballets without even twenty percent
Are you not ashamed to ascend the seat?
Winning and changing colours and turning into vultures
Tearing and eating do you have any sense?

Why don’t you throw down these day burglars?
If we have any dignity
Immediately, this very moment pour petrol
And burn the system
The country should be a message to the forth coming nation
If we can’t save immediately
The tomorrow’s nation
Our continent would turn sterile
Every organ will be auctioned on the road
We have to get a turning to the country here
We should show a path to this kingdom here
Only one always runs the war
Success comes when one sacrifices the life

Breaking a tether on the neck of the mother earth
Wiping the tears of my mother India
Lighting the suns in the eyes of my nation
A new heaven I’ll create
I’ll save my culture once again
I’ll achieve new world
I’ll keep up the real living
I’ll make the blood flag to win

Telugu: Suddala Ashok Teja (Poem: KARMA BHOOMI, Anthology : NELAMMA NELAMMA)
Translated By: Swatee Sripada