MY COUNTRY MY PEOPLE

(Modern Indian epic)

Canto VI

I am walking, walking past dark rows of huts, not lucky enough

To posses even the flicker of a wick.

My legs were chopped off, but I kept walking, treading the distance.

My hands were chopped off, but I kept on walking, sculpturing my dreams.

My tongue was chopped off but went on walking holding just silence.

I was flowing like flood into the sea.

I was blowing like mad wind into the sky

There was not even a candle of light in the cruel

And tearing darkness, to give me a handful of rays

I am walking in the rows of huts where

There are no men by day and there is no light at night.

I am walking-

Here, a child is leading a young calf to feed, having no food himself.

Where even childhood has to work to survive;

There my legs really got chopped off

My hands really dropped off

And my tongue fell dead

There, I am not the flood

There I am not the mad wind at

 The feet of that child.

I poured all my tears at those feet. The necklace of pearls

That was swinging in my soul, snapped and fell

Fell at those feet, my poem turned aside her face and wept.

The poem said:

“I cannot come even if you invite me into

a heavenly dream from here

Where I am rooted forever”-