An H7 poem

Forty years ago
When I was a freshie
Ahmed asked me
During “ragging”
“What do you know about Palestine?”
Yasser Arafat and
Olive trees were
All that I knew then
Ahmed seemed satisfied with this
And smiled

Betelgeuse

After dinner
Amma, Appa, my sister and I
Would climb the spiral staircase
To the terrace
Of our Colaba building
To watch the night sky

J’accuse

Goras are setting the narrative 
That us lesser colours accept
Without question
Look, Joe, look: Hamas is evil
See Israel exterminate Hamas
Look, Joe, look: Israel is good
Anyone in the way is bad
All those babies were evil, Joe
And there are many more like them, Joe

Activists’ Plea

(From the river to the sea)

If I must look away
From this world
For a while
If I must turn my back on it
May my back be
As unyielding
As resolute
As expressive
As Handala’s

Immoral compass

“Ini oru vidhi seivom
Adha yenda naalum kaarpom”
Bharathiyar said:
Let us make a rule today
Which we will observe for all time
If a single person goes to bed hungry
Let us destroy the universe

Sorcerers

These English sorcerers
Balfour, Radcliffe, Rhodes
Who drew lines on paper
And conjured up
Countries out of thin air
Do they look down on us
And weep at their legacy?
Or smirk at
What a little English mischief
Can do?