Tuesday, May 27, 2025

A Koyal Sings Amid War


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



Koyal - Cuckoo

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