Jihad

Khaja
Jihad


I’ve been watching everything
I’ve been noticing your every move
With wet eyes I’m still searching
for the corpse that floated away in the stream of Sixth December
Now though no foot can make humans human
I’m watching the process of converting them into rocks and maniacs

Al-kabir gherao
That stood between my starving stomach and my morsel of food
The flagpole that landed like a trident in the Hubli Idgah grounds
"Madhura" that’s trampled beneath your Kautilya brain
I’ve been watching

I thought Indivaram was the light that came to my house
Rajeevam was the perfumed fragrance that exuded my heritage
Paraded them promptly on my head
You too became Vamana’s feet
after walking over the bouquets of my dreams
Opening and seeing the pyjama of my faith and then

After slashing me brutally, after putting on tilak with my blood
I am left here only with bougainvillea citizenship
Finding nothing else to demolish
you must perhaps be irritated—impatient
just once let your hawk eyes pass over the corners of the century
on the banks of the Yamuna is visible
the moonlight palace that some crazy grandfather of ours
constructed, converting his love for grandma into a froth of milk

On the mound of Delhi—like planting a piece from the eastern sky
Is visible the Raj durbar as if panted in blood
And still for your religious arrogance
Qutub minar Charminar Buland Darwaza
Jumma Masid Mecca Masid Maharaja Palace become my traces
and keep pricking—keep hurting
even when you demolished, when you slashed throats we did not questioned

but—you splitting the country into pieces
you rearing animals in villages I cannot stand
you corpse-fucker—
for the rejuvenation of corpses is corpses are unavoidable—
then it’s inevitable
the first corpse will be yours

I have been watching everything