IN MY TIMES;IN THY LAND!

IN MY TIMES; IN THY LAND!

Grand Pa! Grand Pa!! Where are thou?

Dare ye answer my questions so?

What kind of freedom ye sought?

Against foreign rule, whence ye fought;

Was it to obtain freedom of expression?

Or to assume the right of suppression?

Did it envision a license to kill?

Or ye meant ‘corrupt at will’!

Were ‘law’ and ‘out law’ to move hand in hand?

So ye desired, for my times in thy land!

‘Complete Independence’ was the slogan,

If ye remember the ‘Lahore’ resolution;

Freedom came in forty-seven,

Whence ye ensconced safely in heavens;

How could ye see houses uprooted?

Transmigration of humans mooted!

Men were slaughtered, children maimed,

Blood gushed through alleys and drains;

Women smothered, girls raped in dust and sand,

That’s the freedom of thy times for my land!

Grandson! Grandson!! I hear thee lad,

Our dream was noble, some acts went mad;

Freedom we longed of a different kind;

Issues ye raise never crossed the mind;

Yes! We strived for freedom of expression-

Free of regional and communal passions;

‘Self -rule’ with dignity what we wanted,

‘Chaos’ and ‘disorder’ were not to be granted;‘

Freedom’ sought equality in all our schemes,

‘Religion’ and ‘regions’ were excluded themes.

Grand Pa! Grand Pa!! What thou raved?

A kind of obsession harbours each slave;

‘Freedom’ ye wept; ‘Freedom’ ye screamed!

Did thou know what real ‘Freedom’ mean?‘

Foreign-rule-hate’ was the only one bond-

Tied ye till ‘independence’, not beyond;

Emotionally blinded, ye had no other vision,‘

Self-Rule-thought’ was a myopic mission;

Yes! A slave only longs to be free of chains,

Concern of the future is seldom entertained.
Thy idealistic logic of a secular polity -

An alien thought, was devoid of reality!

Fractured into regions, cut by religious lanes,

How could ‘Secularism’ mould it into one frame?S

elf -interests emerged when freedom came,

Regional virus spread like forest flame;

Religious gulf widened, Language obfuscating,‘

Self-Rule-dream’ soon turned frustrating;

Each group promoted its selfish brand,'

Freedom’ so hailed for my times in thy land!

Grand Son! Grandson!! Thou forget thee history-‘

Tyranny’ and ‘infighting’ led to doom our ancestry;

‘Slaves?’ thou said, ‘yes, we were slaves’-

Of foreign intrigues, not mindless craze;

Thou are slaves of money and vicious thinking,

Thy mind is decaying, thy acts are stinking;

We laid down lives to make ye people free,

Ye kill thy brethren on a selfish plea;

Marriage have become thy money-spinning fads,

Evil rules the roost in thy times in my land.

Grand Pa! Grand pa!! I respect thee emotions,

But, surely, we differ on various notions;

Boast ye may of self-less ideals,

We promote our self with utmost zeal;

Ye dreamt of India as one big frame,

We segmented it as lingual grains;

Thy endless jail-sojourns sought no rewards-

‘Pass port’ they became to make us over-lords;

‘Selfless-sacrifices’ placed power in the hands-

Of self-serving families,of thy times in my land.

Freedom ye conceived of an utopian kind;

What we practice is freedom of mind;

Mind is free to think and perceive;

Whatever one deems, as one believes;

Thou shackled thyself in peaceful processions,

Our ‘Freedom’ hates such impotent obsessions;

Policemen are free to poke ‘under-trials’ eyes,

Crime in politics is a budding enterprise;‘

Free-for-all’ is the symphony of our cultural band,

‘Unshackled Freedom’ reigns my times in thy land.

Grandson! Grandson!! Hold thy tongue;

Such clumsy thoughts do make me dumb;

We won the freedom; ye enjoy its fruits,

What freedom we desired, ye corrupted its roots;

We renounced riches for freedom sake,

Thy passion is money, rest every -thing fake;

We steered the boat out of a stormy sea;

Ye are drilling holes on self -seeking plea;

Time ye stop running foreigner’s errand!

Lest India balkanize like ‘Soviet Land’.

Grand pa! Grand pa!! Ye do make a point,

Do ideals and ethics in our context count?

Yes! ‘Rama’ and ‘Krishna’ glorify television,

But their central diktat is no one’s mission,

Deadly wars followed, when women sacrileged-

‘Sita’ by ‘Ravana’;‘Draupadi’ by ‘Kaurava-breed’,

Behold! Today no conscience is pricked,

If a girl fed to flames like a wooden-stick;

Alas! Our culture has turned so bland,

What a freedom? For my times in thy land!

Right you are! Grand pa, you are right!!

Desensitized people deserve this plight;

Incest is common; mass rapes aplenty,

Being sister or daughter is just no warranty;

In temples and shrines no priests reside;

Butchers and sages together seek a hide;

‘Criminalized politics’ makes no one dazed,

For, money as ‘God’ has all other displaced;

Democracy runs on caste-creed brands!

Upturned morals rule my times in thy land!