-for Sharjeel Imam and Gulfisha Fatima You tear down a party flag as we cut through the back lane– I warn: CCTV; you scold: Control your worry– How many have they jailed? Let’s pray they are beaten soon! I concede you’re right, then I wink at the waxing moon.Comments closed
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
-Recalling Umar Khalid’s latest bail plea while reading Langston Hughes on Republic Day It might shrivel– or fester and run, stink, explode or crust over– but the taste of the air today tells me, for now, it’s likely to smoulder.Comments closed
Every morning last week, two butterflies appeared near the bush by our back window– they flickered there, like static from your mother’s old radio, or faraway lightning– or j0y. This week, they’re suddenly gone– like the tailorbirds’ storm-broken nest, or your mother– or Umar Khalid. How long has it been since they took him? you ask as we enter the park.Comments closed
Sometimes in the epics, demons fall on heroes as they pass through forests– like the thugs who grabbed you, late night, from a bus stop– they took you to the station, gave you to the police, who tried to extract money from you and your family. It is an age-old racket– you had stolen nothing, they had no cause to beat you.Comments closed
-Republic Day, 2023 I asked the AI for a poem, in the style of Kolatkar, about justice and Umar Khalid– I said please, I asked three times, and each time the AI replied: ‘An error has occurred’.Comments closed
-for Umar Khalid I was holding you tight and praying as we weaved through autos and cars– you said we were already late for our train to the south– and the sea. At some point, moon swallowed sun, or was it the other way round? We told lies to strangers and laughed– we cursed the Delhi police. Before dawn, I woke and was struck by the sound of the call to prayer, I remembered Umar Khalid– I prayed for the souls of blind judges.Comments closed
-August 15, 2022 Some day soon, you’ll be watching a pair of tiny squirrels chase each other around a muddy park– or you’ll hear a young girl laugh as she rides an oversized cycle, hard through rain-soaked lanes– and for a time you may forget the fading light– but later you’ll read more friends have been charged for reading namaz, or that Hany Babu is still in jail– or you’ll see a brown kite fly away with a squirrel– and you’ll remember the darkness and tremble.Comments closed
-for Mohammed Zubair On the day Mohammed Zubair was released from Tihar Jail, sheets of rain bounced so high that for a few moments the ground all around shone and bloomed– a watery garden, suddenly sprung from a muddy, North Delhi lane. That evening, after the snarled streets and soaked shoes, I went out to buy a mango to celebrate the news. The man at the fruit cart was smiling: See how clean the wind tastes tonight– perhaps, the weather is changing.Comments closed
-for Professor Ratan Lal The feelings of powerful people are so easily hurt, lately– the police investigate satire as if wit were a felony. Reason, humour, history are now enemies of the state; solidarity’s called ‘terror’; they see love and say ‘hate’. But what do they find most painful? A Dalit who speaks his mind, friends! (If Ambedkar were alive today, Tihar Jail is where you’d find him.)Comments closed
I was sitting near the back at the launch of G.N. Saibaba’s book of poems and letters from prison when he slipped into the seat on my left– I might not have noticed, but his white hair was glowing like a Christmas star, or a tube light hung on the wall behind the priest at at Midnight Mass. His tremors were mostly gone; I only saw him shake once– when A.S. Vasantha Kumari described the solitary confinement cells in the Nagpur Central Jail. He disappeared before the Q and A, but later as I stood outside with friends giving thanks for the cool May rain we heard him whisper as he passed: Breathe deep, comrades, breathe deep– tonight you can smell the forest.Comments closed
–While reading Ilya Kaminsky, I Think of Umar Khalid Just outside Qutub Minar there’s a line of buses and cars filled with all kinds of folks, looking for all kinds of things– some have come to lose themselves; some, just want to get home; walking back to the metro, we pass flocks of uneasy dogs. Later, I’m reading Ilya Kaminsky, under a spinning fan– we may not live in a mythical town, but they’ve jailed the best among us.Comments closed
-January, 2022 The dull, orange moon was hanging there, a dusty, swollen ache. The guard said, Close your phone– you said, friend, it’s just the moon. He shrugged his shoulders and looked down– what was left to say? This waning moon, this smokey sky– the orders we all take.Comments closed
-writing from Tihar Jail, Umar Khalid quotes Faiz Ahmad Faiz In the photos the young lovers post, they are smiling as they sip from the same bottle of cola, they are sharing a plate of chaat, they are sitting on a seesaw, under the bright, winter moon. Some nights he says, I’m cold, please warm my hands. Some nights she says, Let us pray now for Umar Khalid; I hear he is lonely inside.Comments closed
-Lodhi Garden, December, 2021 I was reading that story by Manto about two old friends, now soldiers, fighting each other in Kashmir, and I was thinking about how the distance between us has grown, but also how we sat on that bench today in the smoky, fading sun– we were talking about fascim and our fathers, but really about ourselves– and how you said, It’s tough because we all know there’s only one way any of our stories ever end. I forgot to ask you about the last time we saw Mangalesh Dabral, or what you think about Varavara Rao. You told me you believe in what you’ve written, and anyway, most of the time they don’t actually put poets in jail. But sometimes they do, and my friend if they do, we will stand by you, I promise we will.Comments closed
-for Sabbah Haji When I heard the Kashmiri educator had been jailed for calling a general a ‘war criminal’, a serious question came to my mind: How often does anyone in any large country rise to the level of general without running afoul at least once of some part of Article 8 of the UN’s ‘Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’? And forgetting generals, how 0ften does anyone become even a DCP in any police force anywhere without condoning or ignoring ‘torture or inhuman treatment’ (to say nothing of encounters, which might be classified as acts of ‘willful killing’)? Just as some countries are kingdoms dressed up as republics, this is an appeal, disguised as a poem.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
-Dyal Singh College Road, 9 P.M. Emerging from the metro, I met a swollen moon, I sipped a little smoke, tripped on the NIA. There was Hany Babu singing out a lecture— it was so soft and clear; it sounded like a poem. I sat down on the footpath, I shivered, yes, I cried: how can we celebrate with friends like this inside?Comments closed
-Hauz Rani, 6:24 p.m. Let’s walk out into the light, my love! Why not? There’s time before night, my love. This sky is hard to define, it’s true; both bats and birds are in flight, my love. Recall how we shivered for hours that night— Shaheen Bagh was crowded and bright, my love. This morning, rain washed our smokey sky; Hany Babu’s still jailed tonight, my love. A coward, yes; I’ve surrendered my name— to this broken world, I write my love.Comments closed
-September, 2021 Just before the downpour, I thought of Umar Khalid, and how many days he’s spent in Tihar jail. Later, the still sky clung to us like a soggy face mask, and we heard the hard, sharp shouts of thin, soaked men; we’re all just mud and water come alive, comrades— Come alive, we have so little time!Comments closed
-August 15, 2021 I spent hours last night trying to write a ghazal that included this line: unbroken, Umar Khalid’s still in jail, and also this one: they aim to break your soul and will in jail. ‘School teachers’ and ‘freedom fighters’ figured in it, but I gave up in the end because it really all came down to this: They aim to break your soul and will in jail; unbroken, Umar Khalid’s still in jail.Comments closed
Last night as it rained, I dreamed I was a child; my parents were both sick— I brought them tea and stew. This morning on the road, a man scowled as he weighed a shard of broken glass— he was a mystery. Some things, we must infer; some things, we’ll never know: who is in our phones? How did it come to this?Comments closed
Last night, far from shore, and ringed by roiling water, I sensed a gentle wind calling me towards the shallows. In the morning, I searched the papers for some sort of hidden meaning; they think they killed you, Stan Swamy, but I can still hear you breathing.Comments closed
Just a week ago, my mother called to say my father had fallen again; they were taking things day-by-day. Life’s hard enough in the end, the way we all slip and weaken— how could they make Stan Swamy pass his last months in prison?Comments closed
The day my mother calls to confess she’d woken in tears (she still misses her mother, after so many years), I am blessed to meet a six-week-old baby girl; drunk on her mother’s milk, she smiles as she sleeps sprawled on a charpai, like a pehlwan after a hard-won match. Later that night, I read that Stan Swamy can no longer walk or bathe or even feed himself, and how he’s told the court he does not prefer a hospital to Taloja Jail; he prefers to suffer and die in prison— or to go home: ‘Whatever happens to me, I’d like to be with my own.’Comments closed
-Delhi, May 15 १. Our PM works hard on his palace and speeches; ‘Let’s be positive.’ Vaccine centre’s closed; an old woman asks, ‘How long?’ ‘Try again at dawn.’ २. Amit Shah’s police have withdrawn from Delhi streets; still the sirens wail. They locked up our friends, but did not send oxygen: we will not forget. ३. Far from the city, neighbors die of breathlessness; something is not right. Bodies float downstream: this is not a metaphor, just friends we couldn’t save.Comments closed
-for Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita Maybe it’s just habit, but even all these months after they locked down the city and took away friends of your friends, sometimes you still float away at that moment when light’s fading and the first bats are flying; and when you wake with a start it is already dark— you’re not sure where you are, but you hear the door bang— and then you’re relieved to find it’s a friend who wants to play cards— or the newspaper man, bringing the bill— not someone who’s come to take you away: we don’t need police, they spread only fear.Comments closed
Do not call us terrorists for protesting bad laws, or jail us for laughing at gods or Amit Shah. Let us love those we love; don’t tell us how to pray; and when we do equal work, give us equal pay. In jail, grant us straws, if we tremble when we drink— warm blankets when it’s cold, and books so we can think. Do not molest us or beat us (in jail or in undisclosed locations before you take us to jail.) Do not torture us in any way: no broken bones or bruises, no solitary confinement; we need space and time to sleep, water and soap to wash. Tell our families where we are. Do not take us in the night to a field or flyover, and then shoot us before our trial. Do not shoot us in broad daylight and then call us terrorists.Comments closed
Umar Khalid smiles and raises his fist on his way out of court, and an 83 year old priest is denied bail in the 'collective interest of the community'. Meanwhile in Myanmar, protesters disappear in the night, and a striking worker tells a reporter, 'They are the king now, but we are not their servants.'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
- an Ashoka trustee texts Pratap Bhanu Mehta A plot of land, some recognition; the price was low: your resignation— a quid pro quo is not corruption! What profits us? That’s our best option.Comments closed
I’ve tried for years to write a perfect poem, an open window that lets in cool air— or a siren calling from the main road, reminding us to listen, reach and care. That might have worked before this darkness fell, but now, I fear, it may not be enough; we must throw back the curtains so the bright sky can cleanse this sickness, feed our strength and love.Comments closed
(i) You don’t know me, but in the summer of 2019, you met my friend— she couldn’t stop talking about you: a man who knew how to listen, a leader who spent more time working out of the spotlight than in it; a scholar who’d learned the art of switching autos mid-journey— They trail me everywhere, you told her, smiling, Why should I bring them to you? I was envious I hadn’t been there: for months, I kept hearing your name spoken alongside words like hero and hope. When they put you inside, those words were joined by rougher ones, but don’t worry; we have not forgotten. (ii) I thought of you yesterday morning as I passed by the PM’s residence on the way to CP. The wind was cool and smelled like a green living thing; the Delhi sky was more blue than gray, and clouds of bright yellow leaves rose from a sweeper’s broom. I thought: it’s springtime today, but how long will it last? My phone said Tihar Jail was just 12 kms away; at that moment I prayed that you were near an open window. (iii) Alone at night, or on Delhi’s borders we say your name when we pray or shout; we have not forgotten you or the others, we’ll welcome you all, when you come out. I wish we could talk, under a tree, I’d ask what you’d read, how did you cope? I’d buy you a cup of special hot tea, I’d ask what you think of heroes and hope.Comments closed
-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 they pull their heavy loads up the road by Saidulajab. What happens next, I do not know, except to say their clop and clink grows softer, softer, as they go southward from Saidulajab. There’s news of torture on my phone; some folks are treated worse, I think, than the beasts that pull and slow at the edge of Saidulajab.Comments closed
-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 tree on the left’s raining birdsong; from its roots rise the scent of spring flowers. They’re sowing division and fear to silence our songs and our prayers; but we’re only here for a moment— let’s sing of bright cloth and love.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
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, but we may miss the shift in the air as we move from smoldering coals towards crackling wood— or the difference between distant rain and the leaking main under the road behind the park. Most nights, my dreams still smell like worried sweat and roses— but last night I was locked in Amit Shah’s almari; it smelled of moth balls mixed with anger, fear and whiskey.Comments closed
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: will anyone dare to investigate those who led the investigation?Comments closed
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, yes, friend, why didn’t I think of that?Comments closed
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 came to pass, who’d dare speak its name? And would we even notice if other small things changed: power cuts at the local mosque, five times every day, the space on our front steps where once the morning paper lay?Comments closed
You’ll Join Us, I Know, My Friend -for Umar Khalid It was late in a South Delhi warehouse, it was cold, but I didn’t feel cold; Umar Khalid was swaying to jazz, or was it hip hop? I looked over his shoulder to see the Ska Vengers laying it down, I said, Sir, we’re so glad you’re here, how did I miss the news? He said, don’t call me Sir, I’m your friend, yes, this beats Tihar Jail— he said, soon we’ll be back in the streets; we’re winning, we have to win.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
-a letter to W.S. Merwin Today I am reading The Moon Before Morning I should have read it years ago when a friend gave it to me but I was lazy and anxious it is filled with unpunctuated invitations to pause and shadows and sounds made by rain right now outside my window I hear the scratch of a stick broom and the shrill whine of a distant siren late last night clouds hid the moon and later it rained and this morning when I took in the newspaper I saw I had slept through it but I remembered that I’d woken at dawn to warmth and the gentle rustle of pigeon wings and that I’d thought This moment is complete just as it is yes sometimes I do remember the scent of pine trees and water and the feel of my grandmother’s hand in my hair and I wish I could return to her and to that place and to that time when I worried less yes I am reading your poems with close attention and I am glad you have found old trees and a quiet garden near a pond that greets the returning geese each year but outside my window a sickness has spread from the Ministry of Home Affairs to Northeast Delhi and to the forests of Jharkhand and to every place where people gather around TV’s radios and smartphones and no vaccine cooled by dry ice can stop it I can see from the final poems in this book that you would understand what I am saying and also that you would remember what you wrote five decades ago about the Vietnam War When the forests have been destroyed their darkness remain [the last line quoted here comes from an old Merwin poem, ‘The Asians Dying’]Comments closed
-Christmas Eve, 2020 Tonight in Taloja Central Jail, Father Stan Swamy shakes but also rejoices; he knows that soon enough carpenters, fishers and blunt speaking women will join others who labour— in fields and factories, forests and homes— and that all those who hunger will be satisfied, and our weeping will turn to laughter.Comments closed
-Nine months after the Delhi Riots In spite of the November cold, a cat went into heat and wailed into the night, like a sick child or a faraway ambulance. I thought of you then, and the stray you used to feed; I haven’t seen her in months. Perhaps it’s best you’ve gone; you told me once how much you miss the city’s sound and light, and yes, drying clothes still hang like strange bursts of bright fruit on the rusty barricades that divide the loud road in front of our flat— but even the healthy among us are coughing these days, and if they don’t like how you think, they’ll come lock you away.Comments closed
-Delhi 2020 Would you still love me, my friends, if I lost my sense of smell? Could we still touch from a distance? What if I had a dry cough? If I lost my sense of smell, would I still crave idli-sambar? What if I get a dry cough? I don’t go outside; I’m afraid. Would I still crave idli-sambar? Would they put a big sign on my door? I don’t go outside, I’m afraid I might spread this virus to others. Would they put a big sign on my door? Would they jail me like Umar Khalid? Could I spread this virus to others like they spread hatred and lies? If they jailed me like Umar Khalid, could we still touch from a distance? In spite of their hatred and lies, would you still love me, my friends?Comments closed
-for Varavara Rao It settled on me just before dawn the day after I came to pay my respects— heavy, like a thick wool blanket on a not-quite cold night. It stayed until the scratch of a distant grass broom swept it from the room, like a gentle cloud of dust. I did not really know him, so I had no clear right to grieve, but I knew what he meant to you, and when I saw him lying there in the company of those who loved him, I remembered an afternoon long ago when I found my own grandfather lying still in his bed, and how my aunt and I sat with him— and I was so sure I could see him breathing, but it was only me that was shaking. This is not a poem about bail pleas or fascism. Every word I write is against fascism.Comments closed
The clothes left on the line outside the flat across the street are flapping in the dirty wind; one shirt has just flown free, and someone’s firing atom bombs or guns; it’s hard to say— the autumn air tastes acrid, and the sky’s an inky gray. Tonight, we’ll sleep to yapping dogs and creaky ceiling fans; we’ll dream of sirens, pre-dawn raids, unjustly jailed friends.Comments closed
-for Natasha Narwal I don’t smoke, but somehow I’m smoking on a cramped South Delhi terrace; I’m looking down at a wide, brown field of dry grass and scattered trash. Beyond, are trees and more trees, and gathered in upper branches, a murder of angry crows is scolding a circling kite. Beyond that are just skyscrapers— or maybe that’s just an illusion, and there is Natasha Narwal, sipping tea at a roadside dhaba. I want to go down and ask her about the food in Tihar Jail, I want to go down and tell her how much we all have missed her.Comments closed
-Delhi, October 13 Smoke presses down on the 5 pm sky leaving the sun bloated and glowing, like a molten bronze medal, or a strange neon fruit. As raptors glide in high, hungry circles, crows keep watch from ragged rooflines, and closer to earth, children run laughing through lanes lined with dust and shuttered shops. This weekend, we’ll read the police have beaten another reporter, and this reading will make us remember this is our city, we must take it back.Comments closed
If you fear you might be condemned for committing atrocities, go file some FIRs and claim there’s a conspiracy; sedition or 144, incitement or simple foul play— if anyone asks for bail, just invoke the UAPA. Clichéd, yes, but also true: all tyrants and most all cutthroats know when the going gets tough, it’s time to go hide behind scapegoats.Comments closed
-Jantar Mantar, October 2 Last week, we dreamed a feathered thing dangled high, in tangled wires— the scent of wood and petrol smoke, the violent glow of pre-dawn fires; some terrors are too large to name— some wounds, so deep, they’ll never mend— still, something’s breaking in the east; friends, even this long night will end.Comments closed
-for Varavara Rao It’s easy to remember the slow shuffle back, the way the ceiling fan’s slow turn makes the hair on your arms stand up, how the morning light falls with such gentleness on every green, growing thing— how it occurs to you that relief is a seasonal kind of pleasure. We’re so quick to forget what came before— the aches, the chills, the stabbing, grinding, burning, heaving, raking, cramping, throbbing, gnawing, shooting— perhaps there’s just no advantage in recalling such things, but even after the pain’s been replaced by your story of the pain, if you are honest, you know there were moments when you thought or wished you might shatter or stop, but also moments when you were lifted and carried by a glass of cool water, from a sibling or mother, a touch on your neck, by a comrade or lover, a quiet, kind word from a neighbor or father— and if you allow yourself to examine these memories you will see why it’s such heinous crime to jail innocent people for political gain.Comments closed
You asked me if it might be fun to try to hold gloved hands and kiss through our new masks, but when we did, your aunt came barging in, announcing she had urgent things to ask about the state of the judiciary, the meaning of sedition and contempt, and why we jail professors and poets, and why I looked so worried and unkempt. I could not find any fitting reply— as in court, the truth was no defense— I changed the subject back to the virus, and asked about medicinal incense. (I am no lawyer, but I often dream of fascism, frustration and moonbeams.)Comments closed
-Delhi, August 13 Rain drenched the city like a bite of ripe pear after a hot, oily meal, and there was no dry path through the narrow lane behind the masjid, so two giggling girls picked their way through the muddy maidan— shoulder-to-shoulder under one worn umbrella— while Devangana Kalita and Natasha Narwal spent one more long day in Tihar jail.Comments closed
-for Hany Babu and Varavara Rao We met near the pond, I brought something to eat: tomatoes, bread, your favourite sweets— old couples strolling, children laughing; it would have been perfect, except for these things: the ducks were caged, the pond was dry, there was no breeze, and I wondered why we jail our best teachers and poets.Comments closed
-for Hany Babu Last week in the market you saw two fights, I saw one myself, today— wounded pride or unpaid debts, rain-fed flowers of worry. Neighbors and friends still trickle away, as rations and patience run low; now they’ve arrested Professor Babu— is anyone really surprised? Pigeons mate on my windowsill, a lizard slips under the door; the dogs on the street were restless last night, as if they sensed a storm coming.Comments closed
False Narrative (i) -for Rahul Roy and Amit Shah A book or film that relied on identically worded ‘witness statements’ in order to show that Kristallnacht, the Delhi riots, or any other pogrom was caused by a conspiracy between the victims of the violence and a shadowy group of doctors, feminists, student activists, and documentary film makers would be classified as, ‘fiction/fantasy’, and hardly anyone would buy or watch it, because even by the standards of that genre, it would be unbelievable. False Narrative (ii) You may spook the courts, and even the press, but you won’t deceive the rest of us: fiction is fiction, no matter who sells it; a lie is a lie, no matter who tells it.Comments closed
I was thinking of your poem, ‘When Moonlight Moves Into the Dark’ as a comrade and I walked past the remnants of one of Delhi’s once wild forests. From our left came the sound of rain soaked branches and wind, from our right, the grumble and pop of late night traffic. Across the road, beyond the rush of bikes and cars, loomed the homes of the city’s rich— and I asked myself, Who owns this hauled-out wealth? At that moment, I heard you whisper: All the riches hidden behind closed doors are the forest. They want you dead, Varavara Rao, they think they can silence and cage you, but we know that is not how this will end. Not soon, but soon enough, we’ll rouse ourselves from this nightmare to find vines entwined everywhere, flames blossoming new worlds. *Note: Italicized lines by Varavara Rao from the poem cited, translated by D. Venkat RaoComments closed
-a letter to the editors Pandit or pauper, doctor or gangster, under the law, professions don’t matter: if they set out to kill you, without a court order, that’s not an ‘encounter’, that is a murder.Comments closed
Every so often, I catch a glimpse of the lizard that lives in my room; he does most of his work in the dark. I know it’s a foolish comparison, but his eyes evoke a home minister who appears on the evening news. Meanwhile, Safoora Zargar has still not been granted bail, and though the monsoon is far away, yesterday, a neighbor’s child swore he saw a long black snake in the park behind our flats.Comments closed
Behind us, a rusty, wire fence; under our feet: dry grass and dust. We were thirsty. Above us loomed an enormous, leafless tree; it looked as if it might touch the shivered, June moon. Samir gestured, or maybe it was Salima, and we all leaned back and peered into the darkness. We somehow understood that a piece of the tree, or the moon, had broken off and was hurtling towards us—but we had no idea where it might land, so we just trembled and waited for thunder and shake—or the end. Later, we tried to count how many of us were missing. A woman ran towards us, screaming. She was carrying a small child in her arms. Only his hand, she sobbed. It only took his hand.Comments closed
We slept on my grandmother’s porch, how we got there, who can say? Dogs approached, snarling and circling; I cried out, and you held me close. Later, came sounds from the road, a grinding of gravel and boots; you said it was Amit Shah’s man: he stunk of whiskey and malice. He said he’d be back in the morning, whether or not I was pregnant— as he left, the wind changed direction and brought back the scent of still water.Comments closed
Delhi Police blames victims and those who preach peace; they say rain is ‘flame’. Delhi judge accepts unsaid words are sparks that blow; court rules for the fire. Delhi people know rain is rain and fire is fire; we’re a rising sea.Comments closed
1. Perhaps he wanted a sudden transfer, or maybe he just didn’t get the memo, but on Monday, a Delhi High Court judge granted bail to a man accused of arson during the Delhi ‘riots’. The judge remarked, ‘prison is...not for detaining undertrials in order to send any “message” to society.’ 2. (This is not your kingdom, we won’t bow or touch your feet— if you treat us like your subjects we will see you on the streets.)Comments closed
I dreamed they came to our door and took you away at dawn. I tried, but I could not stop them; they were silent, and rough, when you struggled. Tonight, friends, let us all dream: doors open and cages broken, cool breezes and ceiling fans— we’ll argue and sing and share what we have, (we don’t need the police, we don’t need the police!)Comments closed
Earlier in the week, the UP Police charged a man with sedition for calling CM Yogi a dog on FB, and late last night, the South Asian Canine Confederation held emergency meetings all over North India to debate the difference between defamation and free speech; you must have heard them howling.Comments closed
-for Devangana, Natasha and all political prisoners Each of us needs a safe place to dwell, love and care when we’re low or ill; we all need enough to eat and drink— stories and songs, paper and ink; respect at home, at work, fair wages, not condescension, curfews or cages! We should not have to fear they will take us away because they don’t like how we think or pray— these are basic, modest demands; we must give to ourselves these rights, my friends.Comments closed
Yes, hunger is stalking the land, you’ve seen it up close, and I hear you. And they are using the UAPA to crush those who dare to speak out. Last night, you lay awake turning; I dreamt of thick smoke and my father— but the moon is half full and waxing, and the wind is gentle and clear; let’s grab our masks and a bag— we’ll walk towards a Mother Dairy; I’ll buy you a cold tadka chach, you can buy me a cool sweet lassi.Comments closed
‘In the FIR, the police claimed that the communal violence was a “premeditated conspiracy” which was allegedly hatched by Mr. Khalid and two others.’ -The Hindu This world is built on sand and silt, dark clouds are hanging low; how many go to sleep hungry for food or distant homes? Meanwhile police investigate fantasies and dreams; they target those who think and speak, ignore the real crimes. To slow this virus, we will keep our distance, friends, for now, but when this sickness passes, we’ll make tyrants scrape and bow.Comments closed
When right wing thugs
attack members of a religious
minority in broad daylight
in a nation’s capital
while the police look on
or join in the attacks,
that is not a ‘riot’,
that is a pogrom.
And when armed men in uniform
force their way into homes,
break furniture and take
jewelry and cash,
that is not ‘quelling a riot’,
that is loot and pillage.
And when students of a madrasa
in UP, or any other place,
emerge from jail with bruises
and rectal bleeding,
that is not ‘detention’,
that is torture and rape.
And when officers of the law
take young men accused
of a crime to an empty field
(on a hillside or under a flyover),
and then turn them loose
and shoot them dead as they run,
that is not an ‘encounter’,
that is murder.
And when any government
anywhere in the world,
at any time in history,
accepts, justifies or orders
these and many other crimes,
that is not a ‘democracy’,
that is tyranny.
And when any of us agree
to use words that mask
the truth of these
unspeakable things,
we are not using
‘measured language’
we are telling lies.
Sometimes as you drift off
you feel your chest tighten;
your ears ring
and your lungs won’t fill,
like you’ve been shut
in a cold, dark vault,
or you are shackled
and shivering
in a cell somewhere
in Kashmir or Karnataka—
maybe they’ll beat you
if you ask to see the sky
or just because it is time
for the beating.
Lock your doors,
turn off the lights,
do not venture out
after dark.
I’m dreaming seditious dreams,
I’m singing a seditious song!
I’m loving my neighbors,
don’t care where they’re from—
let’s abolish all checkpoints
and borders…
as we sing a seditious song!
I’m dreaming seditious dreams,
I’m singing a seditious song!
I’m praying for freedom
from fear and from want—
let’s plant crops, not walls,
on our borders…
as we sing a seditious song!
I’m dreaming seditious dreams,
I’m singing a seditious song!
I’m reading Ambedkar,
he makes perfect sense—
let’s annihilate things that
divide us…
as we sing a seditious song!
I’m dreaming seditious dreams,
I’m singing a seditious song!
Some days let’s be boys,
some days let’s be girls—
let’s fall in love when
we want to…
and we’ll sing a seditious song!
I’m dreaming seditious dreams,
I’m singing a seditious song!
Let’s open a library,
we’ll read what we want—
we’ll argue, and think
together…
as we sing a seditious song!
I’m dreaming seditious dreams,
I’m singing a seditious song!
It’s natural to cry,
to feel anxious and scared—
let’s heal each other
and struggle…
as we sing a seditious song!
There are some who give off an evil glow,
no matter what colour clothes they wear.
In a state just a bus ride from here,
a leader shouts promises of revenge;
what he says quietly, we can only guess.
I have not been home to see my children
in two weeks, says the man selling peanuts
on the dusty road that runs along the drain,
but I hear things are bad—
they come in the night and take away
our young men, and they gun
us down in the streets.
-after Bertolt Brecht
It’s simple,
anyone can grasp it.
It requires no force
or violence.
The exploiters tell us
to sell, borrow and buy it;
pandits and priests
disguise it with dogma;
and tyrants call it ‘sedition’,
when the wrong people say it.
It is against buying, selling,
debt and dogma—
and ‘sedition’ sheds
all meaning in its presence.
The rulers call it worthless,
but we know:
it is priceless.
They have never
given it away freely—
we’ve had to seize it,
again and again.
It is the simplest thing,
so hard to hold on to.
Before the darkness,
you used to laugh
when your Communist
friends warned you,
Never forget the Golden Rule:
he who has the gold makes the rules!
In UP, newspapers report
that police raided a madrassa
and arrested 1oo young students
and a 66 year old cleric
who they stripped naked
in the cold and tortured all night.
After their release,
some of the students said
they’d been beaten and forced
to chant Jai Shree Ram,
while others came out crying,
bleeding from their rectums.
No one expects an investigation.
Comments closed-December 26, 2019
I dreamed a group of us
were kidnapped by a pair
of sociopaths—
they explained they were
conducting an experiment:
they would blind half of us
in one eye and half of us in both
to see how this would affect
our ability to love.
When I told you, you said:
That’s just a dream about
the leaders of our country.
Later, the owner of a tea shack
handed us an X-ray of a broken foot
and gestured at the half-eaten sun.
The police are investigating
an AMU professor
for a Facebook post
about separation, sadness,
a failed moonshot,
and a cold northern region
which I shall refrain
from naming.
Late in the night,
smoke presses down
on the city,
and the Chowkidar’s
tap and whistle
disrupts my dreams again.
I kept hearing people say
the same words over and over
wherever I went—
sometimes in greeting
or farewell,
sometimes in prayer—
the neighbor downstairs,
the electrician in the market,
the man who cleans
the toilet in the park.
The more it happened,
the more anxious I felt.
When I mentioned it to the chemist,
he lowered his voice and said,
Yes, it’s no longer just
a greeting or a prayer,
it’s become a celebration—
and a challenge.
