नमन उस माँ को जिसने ऐसे शेर को पैदा किया नमन उस पिता को जिसने उसे हौसला दिया उस मिटटी को जो अब भी वीरों को उगती है| हे माँ तुम्हारे साथ आज मै ही नहीं सारा हिंदुस्तान है रो रहा धृधराष्ट्र के आलिंगन में है आज भीम तड़प रहा कृष्ण नहीं दिख रहे कहीं कुरक्षेत्र में अर्जुन है आज फिर निहत्ता खड़ा == [Rough English Translation] Salutations to the mother who gave birth to such a lion. Salutations to the father who gave him courage. Salutations to the soil that still raises warriors. O Mother, today it is not I alone who weep with you; all of India mourns by your side. Today, Bhima suffers in Dhritarashtra's embrace. O Krishna, you are nowhere to be seen. Yet again, I find an unarmed Arjuna standing in Kurukshetra today. Context Note: This poem was written in memory of Bharat Bhushan Tiwari, a young social worker who was put to death in his native village in Bihar on 17th June.
Do you still miss her? She asked me. No, I said. So, are you looking? No, I said. She looked at me with her brand of annoyance. I don't miss her not because I no longer remember her, but because she has latched on to me like an angry badger. She is under the bedspreads, in my bathroom scrubs, in the way things are kept in my house, in the wardrobes and soap dishes. She is in the long strands of hairs stuck silly to the legs of my chairs and intertwined with the filaments of my rugs. She is my song list, my sense of time and my foundational definition sets of love and laughter and strength and vulnerabilities. She forms the fragment of my dreams, both broken and yet to be formed. She is the shimmering lines of gold crisscrossing the Kintsugi of my life. She is the red in my beetroot dishes, the tamarind in my Sambhar is from her. So is the spice of my fish curries and the chewy blandness in my steamed green brocoli. She lives and breathes in places I occupy. On roads, on highways, o...