Spring has arrived in Delhi as the Supreme Court scolds SBI again and India Today live streams the PM– later, on the edge of the city police tend gardens of cement and spikes, and the rich gaze out their windows at razor wire glinting in moonlight– these days even the tops of small colony walls are sprouting rows of broken glass: like a slim beds of thorny wildflowers, or rows of broken glass.Comments closed
Two nights ago, you shook your head at the saffron flags that line the narrow lane behind our flat like wilted marigolds– They are a kind of anger, a kind of challenge, you said. Last night, we watched news of razor wire, roadblocks and wind-blown clouds of teargas– The farmers are back like spring flowers, you said– a kind of love, and also a challenge.Comments closed
-Christmas Day, 2021 i. One morning, during the plague that followed the fires that scarred the capital, you were feeding our pet rat, when word came from the town cryer: The farmers have circled the city. ii. A year and many deaths later, the king and his first minister finally concede. It will take another long year to pry open the jails, but when spring arrives that March, Shaheen Bagh is back in bloom. iii. ‘The change’ comes fast when it comes: the police and army trade their lathis and guns for the tools they need to build homes and hospitals. On every corner, libraries sprout, like winter wheat planted over obsolete borders.Comments closed
Omicron’s arrived,
be it mild or strong–
Delhi smells of smoke;
Amit Shah’s an animal.
Still, let’s celebrate–
Sudha Bharadwa: out of jail;
the farmers have proven
when we unite, we do not fail.
Comments closedLast week I crossed a narrow bridge strung over a wide canyon, and as I crossed, I felt a hole open in my belly. Last night under a swollen moon, I dreamt of Umar Khalid; I heard him laughing in his cell: The farmers have prevailed!Comments closed
The marching farmers fall, like wheat beneath a fast combine; young and old, they fall, stuck from behind, struck from behind! Watch the video: it is so clear, my friends, so clear; they’re marching peacefully: they do not fear, they do not fear. I see my father there; his tall, bent back, his slow, slow gait. The fallen ones will rise— like seeds, that is their fate, our fate!Comments closed
-August 15, 2021 Vaccines, free for all. How many friends died waiting? Thanks, PM Modi. Someone’s in our phones. Do you sense them listening? They can’t hack our dreams. What of our farmers? They’re still here, they never left— I dream Shaheen Bagh.Comments closed
Far from home, lost and alone, stillness greets you as you enter the station. On the platform below, Mr. Bachchan is growling about masks and washing and keeping distance. There’s a rumble and rush, and as your train nears, a one legged pigeon swoops down and whispers: What news of the farmers— the TV’s gone silent— have we forgotten we can’t live without them?Comments closed
We stood in the shadows and ate, it looked like a coronation; how we got in, I’m not sure, perhaps we snuck in the back. It could have been Jaipur or London, or maybe the Central Vista— the music was loud and fast, and most of the crowd was dancing. You said you heard screams from below, but nobody seemed to notice— you looked like you might pass out; I felt the room start to spin. A painting that hung by the throne showed fires and families fleeing; another showed farmland circled with walls of concrete and wire. A man in a suit whispered, smiling: We’ve finally figured it out— business is booming, my friend, the good times are here at last.Comments closed
-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 disease, but when police and paramilitary forces lob tear gas at farmers, it does not cover them like a winter fog, it covers them like tear gas, and when they jail young women for loudly demanding their wages or for quietly explaining how to speak loudly, they are not fencing in spring flowers, they are jailing young women who speak up bluntly. I am trying, my friend, to find subtle ways to sing in the dark. But remember, if it ever comes back to this: when blood runs in fields or streets it does not run like warm rain or a monsoon-fed drain, it runs like blood, and when that happens, subtlety is really just silence.Comments closed
It does not freeze, but nights are cold in the capital; brave farmers camp on the threshold of the capital. Farm bills are passed by a voice vote, without counting; surprising things are bought and sold in the capital. Ministers pace and kick at walls; they remember: we don’t always do as we are told in the capital. The British jailed us when we spoke about freedom; our rulers now are just as bold, in the capital. These days, they lock students inside Tihar Jail; dissent and thought are still controlled in the capital. Last night, goons failed once more to clear protest sites— the farmers’ strength is unequaled in the capital. Why would a no-name poet sing of this darkness? See the courage here, friends, behold: it’s our capital!Comments closed
-Republic Day, 2021 Somewhere winter wheat waits beneath cold soil and sky— soon, we’ll share a meal. The police give in: lakhs of tractors demonstrate people power, hope. I choose the farmers: they grow wheat and rice, not hate. Which side are you on?Comments closed
Smog has wrapped the city like a fine wool shawl when my mother calls to say she hasn’t slept in days— because of the news on TV and our friend who is dying. I know she is right; these are terrible times, and we have both always struggled to calm the warm flutter in the gut, the sudden searing behind the left eye. I tell her I love her and not to worry: Delhi’s roads are wide enough for farmers and tractors and all kinds of lovers— we’ll plough under the wasteland, plant wheat and white clover.Comments closed
A rooster outside my window, has been crowing all afternoon— something about the thinning clouds, or the breeze; it’s hard to tell. They’ve arrested Munawar Faruqui for making ‘indecent’ remarks against a god or a devil— or was it just Amit Shah? They’re filling our prisons with lovers, scholars and comedians; if they find enough stadiums, the farmers may well be next. It must be hard for rulers who fear words and love only power to tell the difference between laughter and hunger and sorrow.Comments closed
The dirt that clings to the potatoes you hold came from a farmer’s field. I dreamt a soft-spoken farmer taught me how to tell when the corn is ripe. It was still dark that morning we heard your uncle shuffle out to milk the cows; eighty years old, and still a farmer. On the coldest day of December, a boy grafts a rose onto a branch of China Orange. He wants to be a farmer. Somewhere, the winter wheat is in the ground; a farmer looks out at her field and smiles. A farmer can tell you how deep you must drill. Listen to the creak and splash of the farmer’s hand pump; tonight there will be a wedding. On Human Rights Day, posters of political prisoners spring up on Tikri border. Farmers are also humans. It is cold on the Singhu border; farmers light fires and plan. Libraries sprout like tulips; farmers are readers, spring has come early. rupi kaur is writing about farmers— she just called Modi a tyrant. Are there three lakh or ten? Perhaps it does not matter. Amit Shah fears our farmers. He worked with his hands in the city, and stood up for justice each day; as he passes, we sing for this farmer— we grow from seeds he has planted.Comments closed
-for Manglesh Dabral We were on the run, and things were changing fast; one moment, we were huddled on a windswept rocky ridge in Garhwal peering down at an approaching line of police and pack mules, and the next, we were avoiding the CCTV Cameras in Haridwar Junction; you warned me: Our enemy has many phone numbers, and I didn’t understand you, but also I did. We finally boarded a train destined for the Singhu Border, or Shaheen Bagh, or home; when you disappeared, I took out my phone and dialed you; a stranger’s voice answered, This number does not exist. Squatting and shaking in the space between coaches, I wrote my father a postcard. I told him how much I loved him, that I was trying to find my way back.Comments closed
I’d just boarded a southbound train, or was it a DTC Bus? Maybe it does not matter; I got a seat all to myself. A man sitting four seats away beckoned me to come over; he looked like he’d been out drinking— or working; you can’t always tell. I moved closer, but not too close, and asked him to tell me the news; he whispered, The farmers are coming— they’ll do what we failed to do.Comments closed
By the time you made it past all the checkpoints and texted it was already dark. A line of tractors, trucks and tents stretched down the highway for miles, and a soft spoken man kept trying to explain, We are not terrorists, we are here and will stay so our families and friends can live decent lives. The photos you sent on Signal disappeared before I slept, but I saw the red flags, and circles of men sipping tea; because it was cold, there were many fires— as I dreamt, the fires grew brighter.Comments closed