Paradise of Love
Nobody could divide us
Neither anybody can
What are we, after all?
Soil and man
Us and the multitude
Between us
If you are garden, I am breeze
If you are fort, the flag I am
You are the city
And I am your artery and pulse
Now I am your restless heat wave in exile
I am the piece of the monolith*
That sings about wounds of togetherness
In this separation
Oh, the city that taught me
Even as learning from me
The city that spread my words
While teaching me how to talk
The city that paved my path
While making me sing
The city that loved me and enamored in my love
Oh, my gift and my curse,
My first love,
My Paradise Lost...
Can I ever regain you!
I haven't spent as much time
With my mother or in my native village
Or even with my better half
Neither with my kids
As I spent with you
Your water flows in my blood
I am comfortable with the water
Your wind inspires my breath
I cannot stand any other air
Each morsel in my food is from your lap
You are everything to me
You are the axis to my cart
As my friend from afar teases me
You are Telangana
As we describe you
You are the North Telangana struggle
Now you are the anguish
Filled in my imagination
When our people marched ahead as a movement
The days we walked hand in hand
The roads we washed with our tears
In the path of our people's sacrifices
The times when we listened to the legends of
Our adventures with baited breath
Today whatever I hear about you
It is like holding our yesterday's
Heart-diary on the palm and listening to it
When you tell about our history
It is like experiencing our own memoirs
As you move on with our works
I feel as if my feet walk along with you
Your march will not stop
But, please, without diverting your attention
Call me once, don't you
The call that injects oxygen into me
The call that was kindled by my breath
The call that makes me restless
***
* Warangal, the town with which the poet has emotional attachment, derived its name from a huge monolith. The capital city of a medieval empire was built around the monolith during 11th century.
June 27, 1987
Translated by N Venugopal