Saturday, February 27, 2016

Guns and Cameras



These days, gunfire and cameras
make the same sound:
rat-a-tat,
rat-a-tat.
One kills; the other
immortalises,
what comes first?
I don’t know.

In these extreme days,
when guns crackle in snow and heat,
the cameras pan,
debris and dead bodies.
Those that didn’t face
the cold steel metal, say:
“It was me,”
“It was me,”
“that the bullet missed.”
Why? I don’t know.

Those days before Kalashnikovs,
and Berettas were invented
killing a man was called murder
“Lock ‘im up,”
“Lock ‘im up.”
Nowadays the military-industrialists,
kill millions,
yet, we hail them as keepers of democracy.

These days gunfire and cameras
make the same sound:
rat-a-tat,
rat-a-tat.
One kills; the other
immortalises,
what comes first?
I don’t know.

III/MMXVI

Monday, February 15, 2016

Nirbhaya – The Beast Is Out on the Street



Nirbhaya, that night were you shy,
To go on a date with a guy?
What did you wear for them to complain?
Was it too short, too long, or, profane?

The word is out on the street
Out on the street is the beast
He is hungry for his daily treat
His manner is rakish and upbeat.

To your parents you were like a son
They were happy the day you’re born.
The eldest one to carry their burden
When all this happened, of a sudden.

The word is out on the street
Out on the street is the beast
He is hungry for his daily treat
His manner is rakish and upbeat.

Millions of hearts grieved your passing
Thousands lined up at India Gate chanting.
But, can they bring you back, I ask?
From the other world, no easy task.

The word is out on the street
Out on the street is the beast
He is hungry for his daily treat
His manner is rakish and upbeat.

The gruesome details we have read
On television shows it was shared.
They tore your insides with an iron rod
The beasts laughed when you cried out loud.

The word is out on the street
Out on the street is the beast
His manner is rakish and upbeat
He is hungry for his daily treat.

They put the juvenile in a centre for correction
How will he right the damage, beg your pardon?
They let him out with cash and sewing machine
Into the streets where he spilled your intestine.

The word is out on the street
Out on the street is the beast
He is hungry for his daily treat
His manner is rakish and upbeat.

Thousands still grieve when they say your name
Men bow their repentant heads in shame.
That’s because a beast lurks in every man
A savage beast that can’t resist a woman.

The word is out on the street
Out on the street is the beast
He is hungry for his daily treat
His manner is rakish and upbeat.

The beast is going into the streets again
Unrepentant and ready to rape and malign.
He is insolent they say in the papers
He will do the same with girls and lovers.

The word is out on the street
Out on the street is the beast
He is hungry for his daily treat
His manner is rakish and upbeat.

At India Gate they hold slogans and prepare
To scream themselves hoarse and despair.
The savage is out again, radiant in lust
Get away, stay away from this recidivist.

The word is out on the street
Out on the street is the beast
He is hungry for his daily treat
His manner is rakish and upbeat.

II/MMXVI

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Homs, Syria, 2016


I
Today, Homs, Syria
stretches for miles without gates,
a field without a fence
nothing worth protecting.
Anyone can walk in holding a gun,
and plunder its treasures,
rape its women,
and radicalise its children.
Homs is a ghost city
wiped clean from the map,
its walls bombed back to the stone age,
its neighbourhoods and street names,
turned to debris and dust.

Homs perchance was
my imaginary ancestors' birthplace,
and tears roll down when i see,
Homs, my ancestral land, today,
torn and twisted by bombs and mortar,
crumpled buildings, empty doorways,
vacant spaces where people lived,
and fled, in utter panic,
from death, rape, and terror.

Those people, those refugees,
"boat people," "tent people," without rights,
want to lead a normal boring life,
like the rest of us,
and, find a place to cry and stifle sobs.
For them Homs, Syria, was once
a city of sunny streets and languid squares,
beside the beautiful Qattinah lake,
on the banks of the Orontes river,
built by Roman maurauders,
alas! no more, destroyed by another.


II
In Homs, Syria, my ancestral land,
nothing moves, nothing except maniacal metal,
from barrels cast from steel.
The vestiges of its culture are torn down,
churches and mosques are but rubble,
there are no homes, roads, or, parks,
schools have been shut long ago,
and desks have been burnt,
and children woken from sleep
by singeing fires and crash of concrete
and told to go wash their faces in fire.

Neither do I want to visit Homs,
nor, do i want to walk its streets,
it’s a ghost city when darkness falls,
nary a mongrel's barks there,
or, morning chirps of birds,
it’s not home to anybody,
its water poisoned by death,
its fields planted with gelatine mines,
it's said there are more land mines,
than blades of grass.

It’s a wasteland, this once thriving city,
which its inhabitants abandoned,
they say it’s the new biblical exodus,
of Moses, Aaron, and Joshua,
leading Israelites into the promised land,
Where peace still remains elusive.
Across the seas in the coldest of lands,
they wait in long lines in the rain and cold
to rebuild their lives,
wash, clean, and cook,
send children to schools,
waiting to be given visas and work permits,

to re-build new colonies and ghettos.