Suryaraju Mattimalla
I am the whisper of the ancient hills,
The song of rivers, untamed and wild.
I am the fire in the valley’s breath,
The pulse of a people, strong and defiled.
They carve my flesh with iron hands,
Divide my bones with careless lines.
Yet in my veins the forests run,
With roots that know no chains nor time.
I am the child of hunted days,
The voice that echoes in shattered nights.
Centuries weigh upon my back,
Yet I rise, unbowed, to claim my rights.
They call me theirs—but I am free,
A spirit the borders cannot confine.
Not Assam, not Manipur, not their maps,
But Nagalim—mine, only mine.
For every mother who wept in vain,
For every brother who fell unheard,
For every dream that was burned to ash,
I gather strength, I forge my word.
I do not kneel to stolen flags,
Nor sing the songs they force in chains.
My song is wind, my song is fire,
My song is freedom’s last refrain.
They push their boots into my soil,
They try to brand my name in dust.
But I am more than ink and scrolls,
More than borders drawn in rust.
The forests whisper of my past,
The mountains guard the tales I bear.
The rivers speak of wounds and wars,
Yet still, I breathe unshaken air.
Did they think a name erased in ink
Could silence voices old and true?
Did they think a gun could bury faith,
Or steal the sky and change its hue?
I am the storm that will not break,
The wind that sings in rebel tongue.
I am the promise of the dawn,
The dream that wakes, forever young.
Not India, not Myanmar, not their chains,
Not the borders etched in stone.
For Nagalim is more than land—
It is a people, blood and bone.
I do not ask, I do not plead,
I do not beg for borrowed grace.
I carve my name upon the winds,
And claim my right, my time, my place.
Let them march with iron hands,
Let them weigh me down with lies.
For I am Nagalim, whole and true,
And I will rise—I will rise."
Poet Suryaraju Mattimalla, Author, Forthcoming "Refugee Poems: Life in Exile", Copyright @ Suryaraju Mattimalla, 2025.
Author: "Untouchable Poems: Lived Experience with Hindu Religion, Ideology, and Society", Wipf and Stock Publisher, USA. (2024).
Author of the Globally Acclaimed "Compatibility of the Death Penalty with the Purpose of Criminal Punishment in Ethiopia", The Age of Human Rights Journal (2018).
REFUGEE POEMS
Life in Exile
N.B: Copyright © 2025 Suryaraju Mattimalla. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the author.
