Anhad ka Baaja

Warp and weft  Make up the fabric of our nation Small holes can be darned quickly Larger ones patched in time But great big gaping rents?

She can’t go back to the Abhayapuri of her childhood I can’t go back to the Bombay of my youth But we can go back to those places And remember Remember what it was like then Remember what we did then

Tentativeness is mistaken for weakness, and Arrogance is taken for strength Yet, in time Tentativeness matures into a certain certainty, and Arrogance evolves into fanaticism Certainty and

In the Gated Communities of our minds We keep others locked out It is an unequal citizenship But we don’t realise that The others can other us  As easily as we can them And just as Nietzsche's abyss

No nuance, no subtlety No question of consensus The arguments are all Sharp logic or Bluster No fence-sitting any more Those on the fence Have all fallen off On one side or the other And have adopted

It boggles the imagination And so we don’t think about it But six million killed would have Begun with one And then ten And then a hundred And then a thousand And then a hundred thousand And then