after 22 years and 364 days,
i am an anti-national
awaiting sedition charge.
an anti-national like you.
we 'indians' got orgasms
by remembering internal emergency,
and partition, of course.
emergency is the memory of faded black n white photographs?
we learnt wrong history and
realized it later.
we thought, it won't come again.
country.
the country is just an imagination.
the blood shed all through the borders
is just illusion
country.
the anthem it got is selective,
but we repeated "jaya he" daily (childhood ignorance)
we, cajoled by candies and chocolates
giggled during the anthem singing.
got beaten up for that, in sixth standard.
there we started everything.
my fellow anti-national, where are you now??
i sat in between mubeena and nandini,
a nomad from tamilnadu.
i taught her to draw india's map,
she took one week to learn.
we were the quiet unnoticed trio in the class.
we ate hibiscus petals and orange candies,
of course we learnt no science or mathematics.
mubeena had a running nose,
so nobody dared to touch her.
mubeena, where are you?
nandini, how many times you got raped?
and if you have kids, don't send them to school.
(2000s)
after years,
i woke up listening to furious drum beats
amidst peacock cries.
"we are demanding freedom."
blue flag demands
freedom from saffron,
freedom from institutional murder.
we held placards against you.
i am an anti-national,
and i won't compare my nationalism with yours.
i am an anti-national who translate
secessionist poetry from the north-east.
i read literature from kashmir and dream about cut-india.
i am asking you how can you dance in joy
when there are less reasons to dance in joy?
where, with dust we find freedom,
where, with roots we find freedom,
where, one day we find you all getting amnesia,
where, one day we all laugh at you until our bones break,
there we will lit the joints with utmost happiness.
we are anti-nationals
just because our word is 'aazadi'.
അഭിപ്രായങ്ങളൊന്നുമില്ല:
ഒരു അഭിപ്രായം പോസ്റ്റ് ചെയ്യൂ