77. We Will Not Be Destroyed

Galia Hacco. Recorded at NSA studio, June 9, 2002. CD Track 40; I-36.

Naśikkukayillini nāṃ, yahūdarě nām
Sahodara tyāgaṃ, priya nāṭṭin jīvatyāga

Chorus:

We will not be destroyed—no, not we the Jews!
Our lives we’ll sacrifice, for brethren and our country dear.     [Chorus] ×2

Raņṭayirakŏllakālaṃ, svarājyamillātě kaṣṭṭapěṭṭitu nāṃ
Raņṭayirakŏllakālaṃ śeṣaṃ, rāṣtṟaṃ nammaḷkkuņtāyi

1. For the past two thousand years,
How we suffered without self-rule!
After those two thousand years, 
Our nation now we have received.   (2x) 

[Chorus]

2. If born, then surely you must die,
But all the time you are alive,
Victory you must achieve.
Israel is our gift from God.
Come on, let's go there—come, let's go!

[Chorus]

This Zionist song is found in two notebooks from Parur. We may guess that it is one of the later 1950s songs from the period closer to the time when the community made aliyah, as it ends with the enthusiastic “Come, let’s go!” It combines the reference to suffering for 2,000 years (from the older song 70, “Our Country”) with the Indian Independence Movement rhetoric of “self-rule” (swaraj).