A caged bird am I, who let slipped her song,

Once incarcerated in so-called social norms,

All fabricated by some phony philanthropists.

No wonder why my motherland is still astern,

In the epoch where nations are all in the pink;

As she too has turned the victim of absurdity.

“You are a boy, never ever cry”,

“You are a girl, never ever laugh”-

Wire pulling kicks off anon an infant is born,

With outmoded regulations for each gender;

Never felt that emotions too can be clichéd.

The very same man who exhorts for isonomy,

Ends up curbing the joys of his own girl child;

He is well aware, that society will reckon him.

Who are we to set demarcations in this world,

When the creator has proffered us equal glee?

Let chains be broken and a dream life be lived.

If I could call my brother,

I’d call him on the bad days and

he’d hear it in my breathing

before I even said anything,

and he’d ask,

“What’s wrong?”

I’d say something like,

“It’s dad,” sniffle, small sob,

“he was too weak to sit up in bed today.”

And my brother would sigh, and say,

“he’s lived a good, long life”

and all the other clichés,

trying to comfort me

in the face of impending death.

If I could call my sister,

I’d call on the good days and

before she barely got out “hello”

I’d say, “It’s dad! 

You should have heard him today,

talking about when he lived in California and

that time he drove all the way to Mexico

just because he wanted an authentic enchilada.”

And she’d smile a smile I couldn’t see –

a smile inherited from him –

and we would laugh,

remembering all the times we’d heard that story as children.

But I don’t have a brother,

and I don’t have a sister,

and dad doesn’t even remember

who I am anymore,

let alone that he once lived in California

and loved Mexican food.

Silver Winter has come again,

Kids flying sled.

We make Christmas,

We play snowballs.

They hit my window,

The sound of a bitter winter.

Invites you to the new year,

The playful word of the snow.

Tales told by my mother

Great from each other

My mother tells fairy tales

Leads to good

Tales of generations

Pillars in the future

We tell my mom

Thank you very much

We get it from fairy tales

Examples of goodness

We will ask again

Stories, proverbs

Were you able to swallow the Earth completely-

or a few pieces of its fragmented self are left on your platter?

The platter was filled with barbecued forest,

grilling mountains, wild fauna and precious pebbles.

Was the blue sea, oceans, rivers, lakes enough to quench your thirst?

Was all this not enough?

That you are craving to an appetite for war

salty religion versus sugary principles

brutal human versus generous God.

Who said we have no unity ?

Are we not all championship chefs-

jointly burning the harmony of Mother Earth?

“You are so beautiful,

if I was young

poems would be the only medium for

communication with you”

You see, I have a quill made

from a stem of material that cannot be eroded

between the teeth and

print sheets of

erodible writing surfaces

of all the skin

in my body

that covers

almost all its area and occupies

15% of its weight

It

is in keeping with

with an ancient pattern that exists

for over 1,000 years and received

a use with me on the tiny pores

of skin. 

In order to communicate with me, I have to

expose this cover system

to you

in order for you

to mark the letters of poetry

on my nakedness.

Therefore, this will not be

interpersonal-direct

communication. 

Do not be a fool! The grimaces on my face

are the message of the words I write individually.

In my nudity I place

and not for reasons of modesty

all the words that will not be said – yet –

their destiny is no enigma

If it was not performed well and turned out good

it will be spared, I may allow you

to use your medium between

the limbs

in the greatest amount that can be contained or absorbed

until I reach

catharsis.

I don’t want you to love me,

But like me a little.

‘Cause like will not hurt you,

But love?

Yes, definitely! It’ll.

Like is “that’s sweet of you”,

But love can make it all bitter.

I don’t want you to write poems about me,

Because that gives me a jitter.

But I won’t mind occasional admirations,

After all, who doesn’t want to be a bit flattered!

I know love will bound you to me,

But like will allow you to flitter.

And please, don’t show me off your sense of humor,

I just don’t want to titter.

And I won’t mind you painting me,

But I can’t be a patient sitter.

Liking me won’t demand any tie,

But love needs an honest committal.

And if you like me,

You may be put on probation,

But loving me has no acquittal.

Say, you won’t love me

As it brings oceans of feelings,

And like?

Like only brings a ripple.

Like has the freedom to choose

Among all the lovely phrases,

But it’s axiomatic,

That love ends with phrases that belittle.

Speaking of which, I’d now mention

That like is what suits me,

As for love, my darling,

I may prove to be too brittle.

So, if you can’t love me,

You can at least like me a little.

Cause for like, it’s high time,

But love?

It’s passing away, and soon, it’ll.

A rebel that was me wailed and cried deep inside;

When a docile me put all its heed aside.

Every time the docile put her arguments forward;

It took me the road chosen by cowards.

Every time I listened to its voice,something inside me died;

The rebel forcefully once again tried.

This time it burnt all the chains and verged to its dream;

Flying is the bird since, oh listen to its scream.

The eyes that told her a tale,

The tale that came straight from her heart,

The heart that was once filled with happiness,

The happiness that she once thought was her right,

The right that was taken away with her innocence

The innocence that was her biggest treasure,

The treasure that was stolen away with the fight,

The fight that she lost,

The loss they say was her fault,

The fault she didn’t even know she carried

The burden that came along with tears,

The tears that she shed frozen in fear

The fear that became her only possession,

The possession that they had on her had left a mark,

The mark that she never desired,

The desire to have some answers,

The answers were full of hate,

The hate that became her only friend

The friend of whom she was scared

The scary thoughts that never left her dreams,

The dreams that were once a reality,

The reality that she never hoped for,

The hope that she’ll once again become whole,

The wholeness that she thought she found,

The findings that went in vain,

The vain that leads to pain,

The pain that reached her eyes,

The eyes that told her a tale…

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Don’t leave me even for a moment, my love

for, you and I are like the two droplets of tears from two eyes

when mingled together have no separate identities

but one, where you and I are merged.

I am the earth, ever trodden and parched,

quenched and healed by your touch.

You are my rain, my soul, I cling to in my pain and desire.

You are the blood that runs deep in my veins keeping me alive.

So, if ever, for a second, you forsake me,

my breath stops and I fall.

My love, feel me as I always feel you

in the air that touches you and me,

the sun that radiates and the moon that shimmers,

and warm each other with sighs and groans.

Dear ‘still confused whom I am writing this to’

Because, I genuinely am. I am as confused as Krishna was in the current nation-wide success movie, ‘Kashmir Files’, the movie that took the entire country by storm and I eventually gave in to the pressure too. I gave in to the curiosity of its success, and maybe the subject because like a million other Indians, I didn’t know the truth of Kashmir too. As I already mentioned, Krishna, the main protagonist of the movie, embodies us, the youth of India caught in this ‘war of narratives. Some of us maybe, are consciously on the quest for the truth, while most of us aren’t; which is when movies like Kashmir Files awaken our social consciousness to know the truth. But what really is the truth? The movie rightly mentions that this is an info war, an advanced war where we are engineered to believe in what we have been taught to believe in.

Well, on the other hand the subject of the movie is extremely troubling. No denying that. If what is shown or said in the movie is anywhere close to reality, then let me tell you, I am scared. I am so scared that I want to believe that it is not the truth. There can’t be any form of humanism which is capable of such an act in the name of god. I would like to consider it to be not true; maybe because it hurts a little less, maybe it makes me want to believe that this is still the world that I would like to bring my children in. However, it does put the question in my mind: if what I believe is not true is really not true?

It is funny that this instance pops to my mind as we talk about this scenario, but it does. One of the reels that I recently came across was about how Nescafe established their market in Japan, Japan predominantly being a tea consumer market. Well, they did fail initially and on analysis they realized that it’s very hard to accustom the adults of Japan to the taste of coffee, so they launched coffee flavored candies for children. And, in no time, children of Japan loved the coffee flavored candies and developed the taste for coffee, and Nescafe became the largest manufacturer of coffee in Japan.

Well, I am 25 rights now and why haven’t I heard or read about Kashmir’s history till date? As the movie claims, no one really dared to ever speak about it, or I want to question if there was a power that decided what is to be heard or read by the children growing up in India post 1990s? Because, we are always going to believe in what we have read and learned in our childhood and when our belief is questioned 25 years later, we are definitely going to be confused.

I never knew Kashmir was to have a plebiscite. If I were to be honest, I wasn’t even aware what a plebiscite meant. Was this left from our history and political science on purpose or our educationalists thought it was not important enough to be taught? And, now the movie tells me this. Am I supposed to believe a movie or my entire education of twelve years?

Which is exactly why I am scared of this war. Because, this war makes me question my beliefs of who I am as a person or what I believed was the truth? There is no new news to the fact that every story has two sides, two perspectives to empathize with because nothing happens without the course of nothing. We are all living in a world which is driven by each of our consequences and at the end, it all boils down to which side of the story we want to empathize with, which truth do we want to believe in because there is no right or wrong to the morals of survival. It is really the choices we make to survive these situations, isn’t it?

And, the plot of this war is exactly pinned within this thin line of the two perspectives of the same story. In the movie, Radhika Menon, the ANU professor tells Krishna that the true power lies in the hands of those who have a voice and has followers who listen to this voice and if he were to be the voice, he would need a story and the story would need a villain because that is what will make him the hero. Well, I want to ask whoever is reading this, who is the real villain of our story?

I gave it a lot of thought and to my surprise, a very famous couplet by Allama Muhammad Iqbal, something we were taught in our childhood came to my rescue – ‘Mazhabnahisikhataaapas me bairrakhna’. The true villain of our story aren’t the people advocating for the right or wrong according to their own perspectives in this war of narratives but the people who are setting these narratives according to their perspectives for millions of uninformed youth to believe in.

So, I would like to end this letter with a question for all of us to go back and ponder upon, whom should this letter be really addressed to?

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