COUNTRY Rise from your ashes And like a Shaheen spread Your wings for a smooth powerful Flight in the name of your creator, In the name of those for whom You were created crush The usurpers of your power Enemies of your weak, onlookers Of your helpless, those Who murder decency In your streets, Rape The goodness around us and Our heritage. In the name of The Poet who dreamed of you rise And spread your wings With the power of faith With the power of Islam In whose name you were conceived. Rise in the name of those who sacrificed Their lives for you, death-trains that Kept on coming into your railway stations; Corpses right left and center Like strewn flowers At weddings. Yours was a bloody birth Midwifed by a rock-like will Of a sapling-thin monocled man And a party obsessed by the fervor Of faith, faith that gave you Your name, called you his own, brought All under his fold to your protection. Faith that united Bengal with the West Tore the barriers of language And provincial pride, faith That squashed the might of the exploiters, The buniyas economic noose And the claim of those who wrought havoc On your land and people; faith That struck lightning in the hearts of the weak The innocent and the ignorant Arming them with the power to defend Their right to life and land. Death lay everywhere, aboard trains, Inside houses of the rich, on The doorsteps of your towns In the gully koochas Of the poor Amidst Rats and scavengers and worshipers Of evil with greed and vengeance Inscribed on the tip of their swords While their leaders preached A passive philosophy A gentle saintlike non-violent life. Recall your beginning but do not repent. Your dead were like an ancient sacrifice, A debt to your nation which must not Be forgotten. In their name rise With the strength of Faith. Rise for the sake of your war dead Who fought for you in Kashmir And Bengal; rise for the guardians Of your honor who have served you Selflessly in days of civil strife. In the name even of those Whose intentions were good but who Served you badly for they will Answer on Reckoning Day, rise With a mighty God-given strength and Crush the worshipers of Inhuman politics, preachers Of greed filled values, muezzins Of sin and deception, kill Their first born to cleanse out Your spirit so your forehead Can touch this earth once more Without shame, rise for all The goodness that is still Around you with the power of faith With the power of Islam In whose name you were conceived. RAJA CHANGEZ SULTAN 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A NOMAD
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 15:33:53 +0000
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