And so Hyderabadis watch in horror as the city lurches from one crisis to another. The latest, the communal riots in the ‘old city’, opened up fissures that one thought were buried and gone. I feel desperate, drained of hope, and very,very sad. This too shall pass…maybe.
Just thought I’d share this poem here. Did it in class a couple of weeks ago; it was just poetry then.
The Ambiguous Fate of Gieve Patel, he being neither Muslim nor Hindu in India
To be no part of this hate is deprivation.
Never could I claim a circumcised butcher
Mangled a child out of my arms, never rave
At the milk-bibing grass-guzzing hypocrite
Who pulled off my mother’s voluminous
Robes and sliced away at her dugs.
Planets focus their fires
Into a worm of destruction
Edging along the continent. Bodies
Turn ashen and shrivel. I
Only burn my tail.
- Gieve Patel
(Patel is a doctor by profession; a Parsi by birth; and a poet, playwright and painter by choice.)
