BARAMULLA MOVIE MADE ME WRITE THIS POEM

                                                                          

    

( The Tented Colony of Kashmiri Pandits at Mishriwala in Jammu )

BARAMULLA MADE ME WRITE THIS POEM 

Saw the Baramulla movie yesterday. It is a different movie. I will see it again and then write a review. My mind was instantly flooded with memories of 1990. And I wrote this:-

( A Day of June 1990   and the  Tented Colony of Exiled  Pandits in Jammu  )

In the sweltering heat of Jammu's June,

Bansi Lal sleeps inside his Tent without a fan,

Sweating yet snoring,

While the world outside is busy and engaged.

Perhaps he has nothing to do ;

His bank accounts have not been transferred yet,

His children have no school to go, 

The water tanker from PHE didn't arrive today.

No salary,

No office,

Nothing in the bank,

Sleep comes without effort.

Lakshmi Nath died  yesterday from heatstroke, 

Rupawati   died after being stung by a deadly snake,

Death has rituals, 

The dead need  space to mourn them, 

And rituals don't know harsh weather.

Pinkoo is shivering with a high fever,

His mother doesn't know what Malaria is.

The sun rains fireballs from the sky as some  politician comes in a Jeep,

He distributes pamphlets, and the speaker blares:

" Desh ke gadhaaron ko

Jail mein bhejo saaron ko"

And  tents don't have windows, 

The residents just listen to this noise,

And stay inside.

Unafraid of heatstroke,

The greedy brokers from Kashmir move  through the tented colony with deceit and treacherous intentions, 

seeking power of attorneys from the exiled and hapless victims to grab their properties for peanuts.

Greed is a chameleon;

It visits its victims with gifts that they miss,

A bunch of nadru and some green leafy haak, 

with enough of  saam,daam,dhand and bhed, 

Tarsem, the vegetable seller, drags his cart 

through the rugged and rough path inside the colony.

He cries," kadam, nadru, haak ' 

He knows he will sell everything in one round.

 The vegetables that the hapless consume 

don't need special soil, seasons or manure to grow.

The Relief Tehsildar and  his Naib move through  the tented colony, 

They talk to some young women, making promises of green pastures.

The women look disdainfully at both,

And spit at them in anger 

as they go back inside their tents.

The Katha Upanishad says,

"Suffering puts you on the path of Sat-karma (righteous deeds) ", 

And wolves don't always succeed.

Forgetting their Shiva,

Every day, the exiled now  pray to  the Vedic gods;

Indira for  early Rain,

Surya for  relief from the blazing sun,

Vayu for some  cool breeze,

Varuna for shelter and refuge,

Mitra for  being kind and just,

And Ushas for dispelling darkness. 

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.