Do not blame them if they speak each other's language
Or drink from common rivers
Or the fact that they can reminisce their systematically robbed pasts in
Mostly unintelligent, yet somehow touching
Songy-dancy costume dramas.
A shared hodgepodge of emotional clusterfuck.
And don't be surprised if they’re awfully close to each other
A kite flown high enough in Amritsar could easily be spotted from Lahore
If sufficiently colored with dyes made from Henna, Mustard, and Saffron
It is high summer in India and in Pakistan
A season for Mangoes and cool evening breezes
The otherwise outliers on the edges of hellish hot noons
A Koyal’s Mellifluous call is heard
He refuses to be suppressed by the roar of expensive war planes
Middle-aged men and women suffer meltdowns
On national television
Froth billows at their hard-lined mouths
Convulsive paroxysms of misplaced pride
A meadow is crimsoned
And villages are destroyed
The Himalayas shudder with the
Bright-burning, loud war birds flying amok
Chests are thumped loudly on both sides
Haphazard claims of victories made
A slow poison
Crawls its way into billions of hearts
Displacing hopes of a meaningful co-existence
How’d we get here — what happened to all those
Loving, affable people otherwise used to
Exchanging cringy Bollywood songs
And Meaningful Ghazals
I am weary as fuck from the barrage of information
B*mbs on my phone
My hairline keeps receding
And the world keeps going to shit
Every hour, every day.
__
Anant Dhavale
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