Saturday, 10 May 2025

Justice for my son Stanford Suryaraju Mattimalla



 

Stanford Suryaraju Mattimalla

 

 

 

Dr. Suryaraju Mattimalla, Lapsed Academic, Author, Activist, Human Rights Scholar, Vegan

Suryaraju Mattimalla, Author,  2025, May 6, Agony of A Nagaland Girl: A Cry for Freedom, Op-Ed, Eastern Mirror, https://www.easternmirrornagaland.com/agony-of-a-nagaland-girl-a-cry-for-freedom 

Suryaraju Mattimalla, Author,  2025, May 5, The Masks of Academia , Opinions, MOKOKCHUNG TIMES, https://mokokchungtimes.com/the-masks-of-academia-dr-suryaraju-mattimalla/

Suryaraju Mattimalla, Author,  2025, April 30, Nagalim in the Court of John Rawls’s “A Theory of Justice” , Opinions, MOKOKCHUNG TIMES, https://mokokchungtimes.com/nagalim-in-the-court-of-john-rawlss-a-theory-of-justice-suryaraju-mattimalla/

Poet Suryaraju Mattimalla, Author, 2025, April 25, “The Battle of Thuda: A Cry for Nagalim,  Public Space, The Morung Express, https://www.morungexpress.com/the-battle-of-thuda-a-cry-for-nagalim 

Suryaraju Mattimalla, Author, 2025, February 20, I Am Nagalim , Public Space, The Morung Express, https://morungexpress.com/i-am-nagalim

Suryaraju Mattimalla (2025), Author of the forthcoming publications: "Refugee Poems: Life in Exile," Volume 1; "Refugee Poems: Word in Exile," Volume 2, Wipf and Stock Publisher, USA.

Suryaraju Mattimalla, (2024), Author, "Untouchable Poems: Lived Experience with Hindu Religion, Ideology, and Society," Wipf and Stock Publisher, USA.

Suryaraju Mattimalla, (2018), Author of the Globally Acclaimed "Compatibility of the Death Penalty with the Purpose of Criminal Punishment in Ethiopia," The Age of Human Rights Journal.

Tuesday, 6 May 2025

Tuesday, 22 April 2025

Friday, 17 January 2025

Poem Against the Cremation Culture

 

Fire starts to climb up, nearly touching the heavens.

The sound of crackling wood sounded like a death wail.

But what of the air that chokes and sighs?

When another body starts to turn to ashes and flies?

 

Smoke is present, and it is as black as only hopelessness is.

Possessing sorrow, yet polluting the weather.

Rivers that were once clear are now tainted.

There are memories of burnt ashes; there are memories of grief.

 

Would this be the way their memories can be honored?

Thus, feeding the flame, fueling dread?

By casting their ashes and polluting the streams,

Is it possible to actually transform sacred waters into the dreams of death?

 

It hears tradition and its lore, but does it ever look?

The forests cut down, the dying trees?

The breath of life, now heavy and gray

When have funeral pyres been burning day after day?

 

For sake of peace, we started burning the earth.

But what and to what? Other names, other people, and the future—what is worth it?

When the environment we live in, the air we breathe

Is turned into poison by the very rites that we contemplate and hold sacred?

 

Believe that people leave us to go to a better place,

But at the same time, let the living be happy?

Cornered both make a way for both to survive.

For in death that falls and in the coals that burn.

They are the constructs beneath which lies a truth we all must know.

 

Earth is not ours to burn and to betray.

To honor the dead, there must be a new way.

Let there be some cool-off period where passions cool down and flames die out.

And all the smoke clears.

Hear the dead and the living; let the earth be at rest.

                                                                                                                         Suryaraju Mattimalla

 Author: "Untouchable Poems: Lived Experience with Hindu Religion, Ideology, 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)