by Badri Raina
I refuse, yes, refuse, this Dusshera
To burn at your hands—
You who deserve the burning more
Roundly than do I.
That is why the rains came, rendering
Your self-righteous fire limp
Among the multiplying perfidies
Of the day. Come to think of it,
You do so get away, year after sinful
Year, by simply taking it out on my effigy.
Your ritual ablution done, how you return
To ungodly pillage and murders foul,
Hiding your evil under all kinds of cowl.
While I, knowledgeable envy of the gods,
Never once touched that fair lady,
Go count the rapes you commit, in city
And town, in home and workplace, field
And farmland, school and dharamshala,
On women, strangers and kin, and ages
Of every definition from infancy to
Vrid avastha.
Not a single citizen of my Lanka
Ever went hungry or ill, unlike your republic
Where your grubby hands are always in the till
That rightfully belongs to those millions
Who keep you clean and going, while
Without the least lajja, you preach
Of Ram’s love of his praja.
And, I refuse, also because you who
Set me afire with glee have not an iota
Of the ngyan I have of life and death,
Heaven and earth, more than all your
Godmen and charlatans of other hue
Put together.
Thus I take a stand; I refuse;
And I advise that before the catastrophe
You breed every minute of every day
Crush you to smithereens of screaming
Sin, go feel your so repugnant hypocrisy,
And a new life of self-knowledge begin.
This easy way out of burning my effigy
Once each rapacious year is running
Its course; go among the suffering,
And their countless agonies endorse
As a first step to viewing the real ravana
That degrades your fallen eye,
Slithers across your slick faces,
And hides in your beard,
Then fall at my feet and learn
Of the truths that even the gods
Acknowledged only I discern.
–November 24, 2012
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