-for Shiv Kumar Hauling carts and vendors home, weary horses stop to drink from a bucket on the road at the edge of Saidulajab. They have no time to frisk or roam, just to quench and shake and blink, as…
Poems about the dark times.
-for Shiv Kumar Hauling carts and vendors home, weary horses stop to drink from a bucket on the road at the edge of Saidulajab. They have no time to frisk or roam, just to quench and shake and blink, as…
-after Kabir No matter how often you sweep, dust gathers under your bed, and the TV is loud and shrill; it sounds like thunder and rust— but outside, across the main road, someone has hung out bright clothes, and the…
-85 years after Annihilation of Caste I dreamt that I saw my mother climbing a shaky steel ladder hung from a very tall tall building— I woke as she fell; I was screaming. I dreamt this because my mother is…
-for Nodeep Kaur and Disha Ravi You complain I’m too direct, that similes and slanted images can unfold truth more powerfully than the plain truth told plainly, and that there is wonder afoot even in this time of darkness and…
some things diminish: the scent of morning dew rising off sparse grass; news of frying food or what the cat killed three days back. After sundown, in crowded market lanes we still hear the clamour of hawkers, horns, engines, bells,…
Somebody planted ten letters, it seems, on Rona Wilson’s computer, and then police came and took him away, and later they took many others. We don’t know who planted the letters, my friends, but they raise an important question:…
-after Bertolt Brecht It’s straightforward; you know our history, so you will understand. Tyrants call it sedition when they think we are weak and an inconvenience when they know we are strong; the exploiters always say it is bad for…
To celebrate, on the day Munawar Farouki was granted bail, I went to buy a kg of guavas and oranges. The fruit seller asked if he could make change with one perfect banana and two handfuls of grapes. I said,…
-One Future Friday in New Delhi He was grumbling as he swept the floor of the Press Club of India’s bar. From where I sat, he looked vaguely and unpleasantly familiar, like a villain in an old TV serial, or…
What if they jailed the students and scholars who disagreed or outlawed peaceful gatherings all over the city? What if they stopped counting the votes in parliament or made it criminal to laugh at a court judgment? If all this…