Crisis

Who am ‘I’ and where do I belong?

Is it what the school-book in geography said?

One billion plus of diverse populace, lakhs of kilometer square of green splendor…rivers, sea

A bounty of beauty between Kashmir to Kanyakumari, islands of dream, valleys of tranquility

Is it what the history teacher taught?

The ‘jewel’ in the crown and all the Badshahs and kings. Those temples and mosques

The valiant freedom fighters. ’give me blood and I shall give you freedom’ … ‘swaraj is my …’

The Right to freedom, collectivism and all that is written (and buried perhaps) about equality

Or is it what I see every day?

The story of open pot holes, dustbins and of all those who struggle to get an ounce of rice, inches of shelter

Those children who polish shoes, begs at signals and get sexually abused in the pavements at nights

All the elegant men in town …who never care, pause to share and as if Darwinian “Survival of the fittest’ was just meant for them

Who am ‘I’ and where do I belong?

I travel with fear and I do not talk to strangers … I get shot by the Maoist, slapped by terrorist

Who am ‘I’ and where do I belong?

I blow up trains in Mumbai, open fire in Delhi…murder countless in the northern valley every day

Is it me or my alter ego?

At times I am equality in diversity and at other times I divide my men on language and state

I decide whom to kill and when to kill but never get a chance to ‘choose’ when I would die.

I play ‘just a man’, a super man , the oppressed meager, the naked king ,best dressed city men

It is neither me nor my alter ego

who can tell ‘what should I do?’ where would I find a shoulder to share my insecurity, to cry out loud’?

There is maybe, nothing called ‘me’, no place here that I belong to

I am just at mercy of all the shadows that carry the detonator and the trigger and kill men everyday all around

Feeble me, do not even have strength to call a zihaad against them ‘all’