Return of the exile

After years of wandering, I return
to this strange place, the home I left;
forgotten in the land of my birth.

Nourished under alien skies,
I come alone woken by nightmares,
unable to drift back to a land of dreams.

Gone is the mansion, the garden I grew up in,
gone are my people, landscape of my childhood.

None left here to comfort me
through the long journey into light
or nothingness, redemption or oblivion...

We have hardened ourselves, grown up;
no longer ask questions we do not understand.

Is that why we are punished for turning back?

Can't we explode space and time
back to when it all began,
demand to know why we were sent here,
why so hard the lives given to us,
some more than others;
where do we go when our time is up---

Our insignificant lives
tempered by the questions we ask?

Shanta Acharya.

Dispossessed

Dispossessed

We embarked on this pilgrimage
to the promised land beyond the treacherous seas,
true believers, steadfast in our faith,

Dreaming of placing trust
in our adopted homeland; thought
life would no longer be cheap, easily snatched:

Did not reckon death had so many paths,
so many notions of justice and redemption.

What are you after?
Our souls are sick, moving from harbour to harbour.

To know itself a soul must look into its own soul.

We knew the islands were beautiful
when we stowed ourselves, leaving the rest to God,
praying to the imortal sea to bring us here.

Our country is closed in; our days clouded by war.
At night fear rose like the moon
spreading its shroud over death and hunger.

We came here believing in freedom,
believing if we wished it long and hard enough
our dreams will turn into reality.

Our history a mascot we carried in our hearts.

We did not expect a miracle,
we did not look back---
have we not paid enough?

If you need more
take us,
whatever is left of our dreams, our possessions;
only spare our children, our future.....

Shanta Acharya, Associate Director, Initiative on Foundation
and Endowment Asset Management at London School of Business.

Defending God

Defending God

Whatever name you may give Him
In this Age of Kali
You can't save God.

You have everything to prove it..
Facts, figure, evidence:
If you have been following the news
You must have read, in the papers---
Up against one namebreast
There is a trident ---Trishul;
Drawn up against another,
A dagger;
A third one is absconding
From the trained AK-47..
And apart from these three Names
There are now abroad
Diktats fatwas hukamamas.
That one, having shed the name, is hiding
In the books... how long
But how long will it be safe for Him
Having no name!

Just because it has survived so far,
It's somewhat presumptuous to assert
That God is but almighty!

He's a survivor alright. Though
That is because
He has faced attacks by turns;
The enemy now
(i.e the plurality of the devotees---)
Is on the alert,
And in accord.

And now when the tridents begin to rain
The rest of arms as well
Are bound to arraign
Round the Lord

Ambushed thus
Who prevails?
Who?

Gridhar Rathi.

Theme

Theme

Pain is perhaps
the main theme,
painlessness a variation.
Each day free of pain
I celebrate

My life is a series of
celebrations
I celebrate my right to live
I celebrate my right
to die....


Kamala Das.

Timepiece

Timepiece

I was so ill
so ill, so frightened
that I neglected all, nglected my own self
more than all. Now I lie as a ticking timepeice
under a quilt
beaten by a sense of loss.
What a waste
of energy --- a cloudburst
of intese fantasy!
I never learnt to compromise.
I thought I would learn from Islam
a clean way to compromise ----I did not.


I am hard as a nail
on the cross ---
not the original cross
they hung Jesus on----
there are myriad Iscariots
lurking in the dark
waiting for the cock's
third crowing.
The Cross I use
resembles the one Jesus used
but I am too shabby
for resurrections.

Pritish Nandy called my best book
pulp-fiction.
No, not even a maggot can
grow out of the debris
of my crucifixion,
not an ant alive
shall peer out of my viscera.
Do not put my body
in any coffin of wood,
the embers of my corpse
will burn holes and smoulder.

If I marry an ordinary man
I had hoped I would become
Ordinary,
Insulated against scorn.
Why would want to marry me?
I am such as eccentric!
When I loved,
I became pure love
When I lost,
I became pure loss
Nothing else.
There is no beatification
in suffering
I shall break open
my mind
and display the viscera.
I shall hold an exhibition
at the Chitram Art Gallery.
Chitram does not invite me
any longer to inagurate
their shows.
Cenversion to Islam
bothers them all.
Muslims and Hindus,
both factions are bothered.
I am not Mother Teresa
eligible for canonisation
I am not the smiling Amma
prepared to embrace all.

I am some kind of a worm
now laid under
the microscope.
My fame itself
is in doubt,
It's crisscrossed with blunders.
I am the son
of Eleanora Heine
or was it said by another?
I forget names.
Will one of my sons dare to say
I am the son
of Kamala Das?
My wayward search for love
made me seem ridiculous.
all searches are wayward,
there is grace
only in repose.

Kamala Das.

JEEP

Jeep

There isn't much to do
but
to wait.
Other than waiting
there isn't much to do.

At midnight, the jeep stops
at the front door.
Even the sound of breath
leaps about the house
like an assassin; knocks at the door...
pulling at the roots of the house.

Has it stopped for good, at the front door?
After the long wait
comes the honking of unplumbed destiny.

The jeep dashes off.

Now even the house
waits
as it is written into history.

(Translated from the Bengali poem 'Jeep' by Antara Dev Sen.
Written by Hayat Mahmood, a leading poet from Bangladesh.)

No one for me.....

They came first for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics
and I did not speak out because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.


Martin Niemoller (1892-1984)

Prayer of the Frog

Prayer of the Frog
"Prisoner at the bar", said the Grand Inquisitor,
"you have been charged with encouraging people
to break with the laws, traditions and customs of
our holy religion. How do you plead?"
"Guilty, Your Honour"
"And with frequenting the company of
heretics, prostitutes, public sinners,
the extortionist tax-collectors,
the colonial conquerors of our nation -
in short, the ex-communicated. How do you plead?"
"Guilty, Your Honour"
"Finally, you are charged with revising,
correcting, calling into question
he sacred tenets of our faith. How do you plead?"
"Guilty, Your Honour"
"What is your name, prisoner?"
"Jesus Christ, Your Honour"
(Some people are just as alarmed to see
their religion practised as they are to hear it doubted.)
- Fr Anthony de Mello's Prayer of the Frog