Bhooshi Annapoornamma

Santhamma’s Vow

(Translated by T. S. Chandra Mouli)

Santhamma !Oh Santhamma!
Why don’t you respond?
Why appear so crest fallen ?
Why look into vacuum?
Why those streams of tears
Reaching the netherworld?
I too belong
To your category!
Just utter a word
Unburden
Inner load.
Vexed of twenty year old Marriage
with  sixty years’ load?
Innocent one!
For a lady life is cumbersome
Ages old bane
Feeling it better
To gulp poison
And depart swiftly?
Sacrifice not self
Tired of conflicts in life.
Suicide greatest sin
How does death help?
Never lose heart
Thinking of past
I am there, for company
Locate the cause for all the problems,
Think of the line,
Carry on cautiously
Family—a shackle
Sacrifices—soft corners
Attachments, affinities
Discard daringly!
What! What you say?
You lament for the
Loss of your merit
Confined in the fame work of family,
Carried by current of whirlpools
And unknown undulations.
Recapture it, dear
With Right approach!
Let not hesitation hamper hard work
Cowardice blocks
Progress
Age not a constraint for agitation
Enthusiasm its life breathe
Fortitude fortifies
With zeal .
So many groups for women uplift
Joining hands with them
Go ahead till
The slogan ‘women are not weak’
Reverberates in your ears,
Forge ahead
Marching along
With a song on lips,
Accelerate movement
Obliterate
Sexual assaults,
Discrimintation,
Devastating womenfolk every day.
In unison
Women need to thunder
Forge ahead fervently.
Mighty motivation
Moved Santhamma,
Wisdom dawned
Qualms and tears
Shed Santhamma,
Courage she got,
Santhamma  took a vow!