Proud inventory and inspection Stationary military parade on the verandah Acquisitions from diwali arms bazaars
Atom bombs, rockets Chakras and phuljadis Ladis, snakes Chakhris and anaars
Shapely coca cola Bottle as launcher Rockets fired from terrace Incoming Akaash tara December 4, 1971 Trenches dug Windows papered Papa summoned to base By air commodore Dhatikara
Sirens, sirens Ack Ack Tracers lighting up the sky Diwali came again
DIWALI | Vikram Seth Three years of neurotic Guy Fawkes Days-I recall That lonely hankering- But I am home after all.
Home. These walls, this sky Splintered with wakes of light These mud-lamps beaded round The eaves, this festive night,
These streets, these voices...yet The old insensate dread, Abeyant as that love, Once more shifts in my head.
Five? Six? generations ago Somewhere in the Punjab My father's family, farmers, Perhaps had a small shop
And two generations later Could send a son to a school To gain the conqueror's Authoritarian seal:
English! Six-armed god, Key to a job, to power, Snobbery, the good life, This separateness, this fear.
English: beloved language of Jonson, Wordsworth's tongue- These my "meridian names" Whose grooves I crawl along.
The Moghuls fought and ruled And settled. Even while They hungered for musk-melon, Rose, peach, nightingale,
The land assumed their love. At sixty they could not Retire westwards. The British Made us the Orient.
How could an Englishman say About the divan-e-khas "If there is heaven on earth It is this; it is this; it is this."?
Macaulay the prophet of learning Chewed at his pen: one taste Of Western wisdom "surpasses All the books of the East,"
And Kalidas, Shankaracharya, Panini, Bhaskar, Kabir, Surdas sank, and we welcomed The reign of Shakespeare.
The undigested Hobbes, The Mill who later ground (Through talk of liberty) The Raj out of the land ...
O happy breed of Babus, I march on with your purpose; We will have railways, common law And a good postal service-
And I twist along Those grooves from image to image, Violet, elm-tree, swan, Pork-pie, gable, scrimmage
And as we title our memoirs "Roses in December" Though we all know that here Roses grow in December
And we import songs Composed in the U.S For Vietnam (not even Our local horrors grip us)
And as, over gin at the Club, I note that egregious member Strut just perceptibly more When with a foreigner,
I know that the whole world Means exile of our breed Who are not home at home And are abroad abroad,
Huddled in towns, while around: "He died last week. My boys Are starving. Daily we dig The ground for sweet potatoes."
"The landlord's hirelings broke My husband's ribs-and I Grow blind in the smoke of the hearth." "Who will take care of me
When I am old? No-one Is left." So it goes on, The cyclic shadow-play Under the sinister sun;
That sun that, were there water, Could bless the dispirited land, Coaxing three crops a year From this same yieldless ground.
Yet would these parched wraiths still Starve in their ruins, while "Silkworms around them grow Into fat cocoons?", Sad soil,
This may as well be my home. Because no other nation Moves me thus? What of that? Cause for congratulation?
This could well be my home; I am too used to the flavor Of tenous fixity; I have been brought to savour
Its phases: the winter wheat- The flowers of Har-ki-Doon - The sal forests - the hills Inflamed with rhododendron -
The first smell of the Rains On the baked earth-the peaks Snow-drowned in permanence-- The single mountain lakes.
What if my tongue is warped? I need no words to gaze At Ajanta, those flaked caves, Or at the tomb of Mumtaz;
And when an alap of Marwa Swims on slow flute-notes over The neighbours' roofs at sunset Wordlessly like a lover
It holds me-till the strain Of exile, here or there, Subverts the trance, the fear Of fear found everywhere.
"But freedom?" the notes would sing... Parole is enough. Tonight Below the fire-crossed sky Of the Festival of Light.
Give your soul leave to feel What distilled peace it can; In lieu of joy, at least This lapsing anodyne.
"The world is a bridge. Pass over it, Building no house upon it." Acceptance may come with time; Rest, then disquieted heart.
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