Oh Woe

Bandhs of life and death
Fires and venom
Blood and bitterness
As wolves drawn
To the blood in the moon

A fight undertaken
In the name of right,
beliefs and non-beliefs,
For a known way of life,
Against the unfamiliar,
Always the Other.

Friends and neighbours
Sacred ships forgotten,
For I,
Me
My faith
My surname
My colour
My state.

Whither my nation?

Democracy mutilated
Constitution disowned
Rights haughtily demanded
Duties blindly discarded

No place for
The powerless
The voiceless
The threatless
The gullible
As tools for the guiltless.

India - A borrowed idea
Land of a borrowed people
Increasingly home to none.