‘I shall not be present / to witness the language / I killed’: Five poems of hypocrisy and poverty

shakespeare

why do you write poems
for a male friend
who might have been more
than a friend, shakespeare?
are you not afraid of the
churches and courts?
what makes you love the lady
and the lord equally?
how can you fall for both
romeo and juliet, othello
and desdemona? is it even
legal to do so? what about
the 377 of your time?

again, and again

a dalit girl has been raped again
again media will try to look away
upper caste will be caste blind again
again police will act as trained
victim will join the queue again
again courts will take its sweet time
another dalit girl will be raped again
again it will just become a number

love

love
a language
that is not spoken enough

bodies and
souls, crave for
but fail

to learn
as the language
goes extinct

in the mediocrity
of copying and pasting
dictionaries

love
a language
that is in deathbed

full stop, comma
one sign can change
if the language lives

or dies, in between lips
never opened, closed
i shall not be present

to witness the language
i killed

bhogali

the fish i eat
eats up my pocket

two days of daily wage
same as one kilogram
of the chital

families sitting together
busy on their phones

my stomach is filled
heart left empty

only your eyes

majrooh sultanpuri came to my house
and while leaving
dropped a few words –

those words were eaten by the soil
over the next few days and when
it rained, again the words sprouted out
growing into evergreen songs

i took those songs to madan mohan
and he picked one for rafi sahab

that song praised your eyes
my love, truly,
tere ankhaon ke siwa duniya mein rakha kya hai

Excerpted with permission from Served Cold from the Refrigerator, Sutputra Radheye, Red River Press.