Poetry | Saswat.com | All That's Left :: Saswat Blog :: Saswat Pattanayak

2012

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:31:01 -0500

Wall Street Occupied without an organized movement

Egypt under siege, their democracy’s a farcical moment

Libya annihilated; no longer the anti-imperialistic force

Syria and Iran next; Arab Nationalism reduced to remorse

Regressive rebels talk about the promised freedom “Springs”

Vaclav Havel a hero, Kim Jong-Il evil, facts are broken wings

NATO the proprietor, Islam the enemy, Cold War not yet a ghost

Praise the God, drop the bomb, sanction when it hurts the most

Year after year, day after day, corporate media headlines the same

Celebrities make out, breakup, detox; royal families wedding game

Nobel Prizes to warmongers, Oscar Awards to King’s Speeches

“The Iron Lady” celebrates Neocons, no superstructure glitches

A year of tragedies befell the world over the past twelve months

Farcical freedom bells, DSK and Murdoch trials, grand justice loss

Eurocentric lens, American trades, Israeli fighter planes, still victorious

Bankers, philanthropists, presidents, billionaires continue as glorious

By Any Means

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:29:16 -0500

With the new dawn, the promising sun,

revolutionaries now victorious, and after

Many comrades dead, many youths spent

Finally invincible, triumphant, glorious

The masses have won, capitalists mourn

Old order's demise, new seeds of hope sown

Winds have changed course, profiteers' loss

System replaced, no sympathy for elitist woes

Yet the paths ahead more difficult than traversed

Organizing are old guards of private accumulators

"We shall soon crush all & bring you back to sense"

Modern day White Armies gearing up for assaults

Traditionally privileged won't give up hoarded lands

Elected agents lost the battles; not them an ounce

Mercenaries and private army, Swiss bank accounts

Masses a juvenile bunch got no budgetary allowance

Are revolutions half-won? Cause the war's always on

When the privileged surrender, do they ever mourn?

Do they give up liberties for love of social equalities

Or they conspire to get back exploitative legacies?

Capitalistic morons, individualistic parasites

Freedom Tree!

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:00:21 -0500

"Media Unity for Freedom of Press has chosen to publicly condemn the atrocities on media persons under the "Freedom Tree", before the State Information Center (arbitrarily changed into Jaydev Bhawan by a confused government). Around a hundred journalists representing all segments of media beyond union boundaries have been gathering under the Tree that now stands identified with the journalists’ attempt to protect the Press Freedom in the state of Orissa".

Children

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:58:36 -0500

You who surrender your children to the gods

Have you wondered about the repercussions?

Those that grow with heads bent to authorities

How will they conceive of unfettered revolutions?

When will the children question your scriptures

Of dangerous myths and needless sanctities?

When would they combat your unfounded claims

How to break the cycles of plutocratic doctrines?

You who gift your children to miseducation system

Have you wondered about lifelong consequences?

Those that shape up worldview with falsified histories

How will they challenge their status quo semblances?

When will the children demand empowering knowledge

Schools where seeds of resistance grow with purpose

If parents forbid the young to teach world new values -

Of godless society, where folks unite for communistic goals.

Send them to the churches, temples, synagogues or mosques

Or feed them to schools, colleges and university halls

Wearing uniforms, attending prayers and consuming TV news

Yet another cohort of obedient fools abiding by neo-Nazi rules

2011

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 04:53:00 -0500

Will Two Thousand Eleven be more of the same

Year of wars, prisons, profit motives by other names

Shall we have renounced our faith systems and gods

Would religious perversions and charities finally end

Can we look ahead to forge progressive alliances

Bring together historically oppressed, dispossessed

Detached from ruling class fixations, their fancy histories

Imagine new ways to expropriate established monopolies?

Are new formulations going to ensure global solidarities

Or farcical elections to continue national sovereignties

Assange will get justice from imperialist coalitions

Or be declared a terror despite political polarities

In the name of justice how many Mississippi Sisters

How many Mumias, Cuban Five, political prisoners

When will have Guantanamo served its purpose

Will the new year liberate conscience of its shackles

Shall Two Thousand Eleven be more of the same

Love-hate with China, Obama, and WikiLeaks fame

Denials of sexism, casteism, stronger class societies

Gender disparities, discriminations, patriarchy shame

Binayak Sen

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 14:27:03 -0500

Judges think they have now jailed Binayak Sen

But he is indeed freed by this life sentence

They think the doctor's cause has met its end

Little do they know he feels at home with comrades

What country, what sovereignty, what justice?

Imprisoned Binayak, what dialogues of peace?

Liberal democracy a sham, and to save its grace

How many Binayaks we must sacrifice?

Professional war-mongers comprise ruling class

Dacoits-at-large, freely looting the mass

Tatas and Ambanis, monopolists get awarded

Radia and Burkha, brokers, dalaals, well-bred

India is bleeding, oh my motherland in pain

Her comrades are dying, their revolutions in vain

Vedanta’s Chidambaram, World Banks’s McMohan

Auctioning India off, with terror and deception

Binayak, you wont be alone facing charges of Sedition

If they found with you letters of dishonorable missions

All working folks will communicate Maoist lessons

To imprison us all, they better create the biggest of prisons!

- Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 2010

Assange! Assange!

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 16:13:37 -0500

Assange! Assange!

Espionage!

How long can they keep you in jails

British, Swedish and American cells

Who can imprison the source of freedom

How long will survive walls of fiefdom

Assange! Assange!

Espionage!

Spy for the people, terror for the ruling class

Investigator for truth, justice you encompass

Let them win Nobel Prizes and Time covers

You win our hearts, love, unending supports

Assange! Assange!

Espionage!

Journalists used to be glorified spokespersons

Of White House Press Meets and Royal sermons

Fourth Estate, an accomplice for the three wings

These power corridors, their holy and noble myths

Assange! Assange!

Espionage!

You blew the lid off their secret chambers of horror

Their dirty games of wars, you the uncensored narrator

They can ban WikiLeaks, they cannot ban our conscience

Let them impose atrocious bills, they cannot stifle our minds

Assange! Assange!

Espionage!

- Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 2010

New India on the Rise

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:24:36 -0500

Yes, the new India is on the rise,

Superpower in growth and size

Will exceed China, in double digits

Software giant, sweatshops sans limits

Poverty is the biggest crime

Prime Minister’s favorite rhyme

Its the Naxals that must die

For the governments must lie

To protect their seats of power

Must rule over a people in despair

By feeding myths of developments

Need to purge peoples’ movements

Yes, the new India is on the rise

Racism against Dalits the Repubilc denies

Merits, not reservations, shall offer success

Networking is fair and so is nepotism excess

Ayodhya verdict finally seals it all

Trust Lord Ram, holy cows or you fall

The more forward we claim we progress

More we hold unto conservative garbage

Yes, the new India is on the rise

Never before have the rich felt so wise

In their decisions to further impoverish

Workers worship the bosses or simply perish!

- Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet 2010

2010

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:10:24 -0500

No change in sight for women’s rights

No expropriation of privileged mights

Militarists prescribe global peace lies

Working class interests fail to unionize

Organic farming for corporate profits

Healthcare granted for the insured elites

Homeless poor in the glitzy American nights

Hundred twenty-two die in daily medical plights

Twenty-five hundred families each day bankrupt

Subjects of Superpower profoundly distraught

Feed into Afghan, Iran, and warmongering distractions

Collectively throttle international socialist aspirations

The Wars are going to end, say the War Presidents

Monopolist bankers at G-20 make economic precedents

Plutocratic nobility yield from ethical charity claims

Priests abuse children, forgive selves, avoid prison chains

Anticommunist Herta Müller wins Nobel literature

Postmodern Rands follow individualistic scripture

Private properties grow sacred with economic recessions

Consumerism thrives on year around discount seasons

Environmental concerns lip-served by business interests

Father

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:21:22 -0500

My very first love, my very first friend

No words can define, or transcend

You reside in me, each thought or act

My strength, essence, my truest fact

No matter how I say, or fail to express

My source of meaning, you are my sense

Every knowledge I crave, my liberated mind

Noblest gift to me, your love for humankind

You dwell in my life, in each moment of mine

Precious is your presence, forever shall shine

Your love, like the greatest oceans, open sky

Breathing in it, sheltered, how blessed am I....

- Saswat Pattanayak

Peoples' Poet, 2009

Workers' Rhapsody

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:11:49 -0500

All the while, all the while

Freedom mile, all the while

Been oppressed, all the while

Exploited, all the while

Set me free, set me free

Incarcerate me, set me free

Always in debt, set me free

Bank dues late, set me free

Never before, never before

Mayhem forever, never before

Darkness ahead, never before

Hopeless dejected, never before

Cannot rest, cannot rest

Hallucinate, cannot rest

Abused drugs, cannot rest

Competitions, cannot rest

How many years, how many years

Greedy corporates, how many years

Conservative cronies, how many years

Liberal phonies, how many years

Who bail 'em out, who bail 'em out

Protest ask shout, who bail 'em out

Profiteer crooks, who bail 'em out

Funding Obama/Bush, who bail 'em out

Power to peoples, power to peoples

Redistribute lands, power to peoples

Regulate wealth, power to peoples

Nationalize health, power to peoples

Crisis not ours, crisis not ours

Sold-out lenders, crisis not ours

Collapsing capital, crisis not ours

Proving them lethal, crisis not ours

What Have We Planned For 2009?

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:04:43 -0500

Have we planned enough for the year ahead?

The terrorizing wars, conflicts, military bloodshed

Zionist lobbies, hawkish Hindus, Islamic fanatics

Have we planned enough to defeat Christian clerics?

Have we planned at all for the impending poverty?

Or a few billionaires controlling all earthly property

Forty million refugees, can't call a region their own

Have we planned at all for the homeless population?

Have we planned well to tackle global illiteracy?

For more than a billion, education still a fantasy

Eighty percent of world survives for ten dollars a day

Have we planned well to end the class society next May?

Have we planned any to read beyond headlines?

Of Obama's hopes as wars on Afghans, Pakistanis

Saving global capitalism as the onslaughts on poorest

Have we planned any to abuse our illusions at best?

Have we planned somehow to stop funding hate?

To end Israreli occupations before its way too late

American troops, Blackwater mercenaries, Halliburton Oils

Have we planned somehow to block capitalistic turmoils?

Fellow Decent Human Beings... (Trans.)

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:56:57 -0500

Following is a translation of a poem by Sahir Ludhianvi: "Ae Sharif Insaanoen"

I find the poem to be deeply relevant to our times. Just when the majority of us are blaming the minority among us for criminal acts of terror caused by the militarists and suddenly believing in the words of "our" national politicians to caste doubts upon innocent people of another country, at a time when we Indians have become mute witnesses to cultural bans on Pakistan and artists from Pakistan even as racist communal elements in Bollywood such as Aadesh Srivastava or Abhijeet are gaining grounds, at a time when artists such as respected Ghulam Ali are being banned from entering the land of a country - India- whose people love him immensely, simply because suddenly some communal Hindu supremacist leaders are opposing any possible cultural exchanges with our neighboring nation, at a time when we are allowing a bunch of proven thugs - the politicians who we all know to be corrupt to the core every passing day, the politicians who have legitimized criminalization of politics in the land of the Buddha - are demanding across party lines to come up with draconic laws to silence resenting voices in India, at a time when ATS officer Karkare who was instrumental in uncovering the ugly masks of the terror from Hindu fundamentalists has been killed and has been converted into a hero by the very people he despised, such is a time to question our conventional wisdom.

Hiroshima!

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:51:50 -0400

Apologist for collective indifference

Bereft of long term amnesic stance

Capitulated dissidence

Decades of glaring carcasses

Emphasize countless tragedies

Frantically reassess the losses

Grim prospects for peaceniks

Hectored loftily by regimes

Invidious despair from mavericks

Joyous wait for impending peace

Kingdom of utopian bliss

Ludicrous beliefs never cease

Misread pages of war histories

Normalize causes of thy miseries

Oppressive narrations of human follies

Peace comes not by bombing lands

Quest for justice needs friendly hands

Revolutionaries above mere firebrands

Solidarity in these times of wars

Towards lasting peace and raising bars

Unionize to defeat the militarist czars

Victory to boundless internationalists

Workers of the world who unite to fight

Xenophobes, reactionary nationalists

Yardsticks of progress are years of peace

Zenith of harmony shall be rare to miss

-Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet, 2008

As Lebanon Bleeds, It Kills

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:47:12 -0400

It kills our conscience every single day,

as we carry on with our mundane plans

to further petty bourgeois career paths as usual.

Lebanon kills our ability to reason with truth,

as we carry on with our

CNN

and BBC

and New York Times.

Lebanon kills our faith in human good,

as we rationalize

that it is human nature to sustain warfare.

Lebanon kills our trusts in our own potential to rise up,

look into our comfortable shining mirrors on the walls,

and discover how unabashedly wretched we must look

if we smile to ourselves today.

Lebanon kills all that is beautiful,

all that is innocent,

all that is glorious,

all that is humane,

all that is kind,

all that is generous,

all that we mean by understanding for social good.

Yes, Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.

Lebanon kills our sense of empathy

when children of Beirut

are massacred in name of

democracy.

Lebanon kills our feelings of cooperation

when we indifferently watch

hapless humans murdered in name of

freedom.

Lebanon kills our pride in our identities

Nepal: Ode to Revolution

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:46:04 -0400

People of Nepal have finally “gained victory”

Although why the Crown relented appears a mystery

After weeks of active resistance; in face of military excesses

Took 14 deaths for the King to grant freedom to his subjects

Just when I thought, a specter was almost haunting Nepal

A specter of hope, and struggle to erase writings off the wall

The Monarchy has now heeded to its Big Brothers in crime

And the world media are already replacing remnants of grime

For the comrades: before the battle is won, the war has been lost!

Powers have hijacked the purpose of resistance at every si

For I believe, freedom is ours to possess; not for the Royals to offer

Even as they recreate their myths, and even as we continue to suffer...!

---Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 2006

Tookie's Song

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:45:04 -0400

They finally killed Tookie.

After all, he needed to die.

To perpetuate the system

To uphold the mayhem

To continue the mental slavery

Since it’s our collective mockery.

Of course, Tookie had to be killed

He posed to empower the reviled

How long more would they let him write

How much more they could let him fight

Sinners don’t preach, its privilege of the saint

Tookie’s pen had to justify every word he meant

We live in days of certainty, of high conformance

Of how to demarcate thin lines of adherence

Fast answers to many a riddles of our times

Between social constructs, judgments worth a few dimes

Of course Tookie was absolutely the criminal

Agitating children against gangs can be fatally banal

Tookie did not watch Fox TV to be enlightened

Or learnt of Law and Order from episodes televised

He spoke of ways he was turned towards the evil strait

During the times they would not let the blacks integrate

The system then produced petty thieves and killed their colors

Oh now, the system is itself the criminal, creating unjust wars

Bhagat Singh

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:44:13 -0400

Why, Bhagat Singh, did you die?

At a time when people were shy

To come out of their homes to fight

Against the British’s indomitable might

You had dreamt of freedom

For the future generations

Thus you sacrificed your life

For this mission of yours

Yes, comrade, your dream’s fulfilled

Your death paid off, India was freed

British are no more ruling over us

How can we thank you, our words are at loss

You got yourself hanged; for the sake of the motherland

With a dream in your eyes; and a smile on your lips

Alas! Today’s country is not India of your dreams;

Your great sacrifice has gone in vain, it seems.

Why, Bhagat Sing, didn’t you marry?

Why did you flee away from home feeling sorry

For your family which was arranging your marriage

You boldly defied them and took revolutionary’s pledge

You were only seventeen then

Why didn’t you enjoy life like other men

Look upon us, from school days, flirting with girls

All of my friends think your death was a farce

The girls of my age say you were sexy and young

I Am Not A South Asian

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:43:23 -0400

I won’t be a victim of their myopic definition

Not a subject of their divided and ruled abstraction

Don’t dare call me a lovechild of illegal immigration

Will never give in to their verdicts for societal seclusion

Don’t just divide this world up into several borderlines

And compel me to produce a passport to prove my alliance

I don’t hold torches or flags; I wont fight with no “enemy” beings

And I ain’t no reserved pig, won’t dance to their muddy signs

They’ve been asking long for me to sign the checkbox of my ethnicity

African-American, Asian-American, Latin-American and any other entity

The terms that they block us by, and those divisions subject to atrophy

They devise multiculturalism and play favorites, so we fight for each legacy

The whites of the World are surely united for their common histories

It’s the people of color who are grouped differently by some taxonomies

I wonder why there are no enlisted Europeans-American categories

Even as the Native Indians are made to suffer from some identity crisis

A Revolutionary Struggles

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:42:04 -0400

A revolutionary knows

the national boundaries are made up to divide, not unite peoples

hence believes in none of that, not to raise the flags, nor to unite banners

A revolutionary feels

true service to earth is working for fellow beings, not worshipping false Gods

hence rejects the notion of imposed God, of different brands, various religions

A revolutionary affirms

the continuation of progress has nothing to do with statutory movements

hence works to make laws work for people, not let people suffer owing to laws

A revolutionary condemns

the racist, communalists, capitalistic superstructures that work out divisions

hence recalls historical assaults lest folks repeat; yet doth not manipulate tensions

A revolutionary forwards

the notion of collective workloads, to share, not to compete, to enjoy not to own

hence advocates workers’ rights to unite for strength, not be vehicles for reaction

A revolutionary minces

no words as a communist, for the mission is to work towards goals despite many an obstruction

Wake Up! Wake Up!

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:41:01 -0400

Wake up! Wake up!

Hear the noises

Feel the outbursts

See the chaos

Are they yours?

Isolate self

Throw the Ray-Ban

Face the heat

Time’s up

Wake up! Wake up!

Before they progress

Know your group

Be the Union

Make the move

Don’t wait for support

or Count on numbers

You alone can

Break them stop!

Wake up! Wake up!

Competition

Globalization

Nuclear State

Or just your fate!

Throw faith systems

Wishes for feeders

Hopes for believers

Your mind, you make up

Wake up! Wake up!

Thought controls

Propagators

No more will you be

Hobson voter

Not a party, but the politics

Not to change, but replace

Stop quoting, enuff said

Your own mind, on the top

Wake up! Wake up!

Wise words, fools repeat

And the idle, hero-worship

History wont repeat itself

You gotta help yourself

Cherish, don’t live in the past

No Gandhi or Lenin will be cast

Title is you, the Star in it too

Movement is yours, just pack up

Wake up! Wake up!

Lest We Forget

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:40:30 -0400

A cruel time this was, the year of 2007

An unholy mix of hell and heaven

America target Somalia in January

No respite for Darfur in February

Ides of March sanctions Iran Civilians

In April, 200 killed by US-Iraqi militants

Lebanese die in dozens during May clashes

Come June, Israeli prez free of rape charges

India enslaved in US nuclear umbrella in July

August on, more power to American wire spy

Germany joins so-called terror war in September

Blackwater guilty of civilian murders in October

Suicide bombing in November’s Afghanistan

December marks post-Bhutto rioting in Pakistan

Where’s heaven, my friend, if you are curious to find

--In the name of God, we maimed the human kind

---Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 2007

Critical Love

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:39:14 -0400

I. The Visionary

Don’t you force me to fall in love with you

I tell you, I have more cardinal works to do

I am no Quixotic, nor am I other-worldly

Can’t sing serenade, to your billet-doux, I can’t reply

Several problems are there, and they are yet to be solved

Many a scabrous decisions are to be resolved

Any scruple over falling in love is no Guardian Knot

I’m at no dilemma as to fall in love or not

Let me make it trenchant to you

That love’s not for me

The cloud-cuckoo-land is not my home

I am no day-dreamer you see

Here I witness million souls

Pinched, homeless and starving

How can I be an imposter to

Act as if not listening?

I bear no grudge that you feel complacent

But its heinous to say that the world is content

I’m pragmatic, can’t run away from the world

For the sake of your love, for, I am no coward

I can leave you for the sake of the world

I shall live for the society, mark my word

They are self-centred, who do otherwise

Die for the world alone, that’s no vice

II. The Dreamer

Enough!

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:38:22 -0400

No more reasons to call mayhem

Not one more life in your name

Not another death to uphold your religion

No more such violent catch 22 situation

Not to secure your mother’s dormant statues

Nor to pay back for your father’s power abuse

No more thought controls by government bureaucrats

Not once more will we believe in your tactics of attacks

No time to agitate, its time to step down from power

No press conferences, no indomitable statues or tower

In such times, politicians of the world must unite

You have everything to lose, including your might

For once, walk with the people, feel their agonies

Set examples of selves, write accords for peace

Stop the blame-games with Pakistan and Muslims

Or against one’s poor, the backward, and their miseries

Now is the time to act, to promise just one thing:

Stop playing communal, ‘tis just one life for rejoicing.

(Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet, 2006)

Raindrops

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:37:10 -0400

Are these the April raindrops,

Or my lingering heartbeats?

My naked windows glasses-

Alive with transpirations

Mired with perspirations

Reflecting back, almost in derision

Calling back, in much anticipation

Halting path, amidst

many a assumption

These sounds of cascading water

On my swarded Astorian apartment

Catch me off guard-this very moment

Immerse in me, in life--

Even as I dwell in apprehension

Succumb to intoxication

Of increasing aspiration

Drain in imagination

Of the ongoing revolution

Will the rain just vanish all too soon

Lambent lightning will too swoon

Life is measured in moments -- not years

Its prizes are not won in competition

Nor in forms of pricey acquisition

As I hear the raindrops in reverberation

Memories of Similipal, ere a score of monsoons

Wise father, tall trees, and proud mountains

The source of wisdom--

my admiration

To repose faith in my fascination

And give way to my adulation

Sans preaching or imposition

Raindrops don't just recline

on my windows

Propaganda

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:36:33 -0400

You denounce them as corrupt

They excoriate you for being communal

You deplore all their activities

They fulminate against your prescripts

Look, all ye men of politics

I dare flak all your policies

That talk volumes of promises

Aimed at deceiving the masses

Least concerned am I to you for being corrupt

Uninterested in communalism, I am no less a patriot

Mark my words – I am no Hindu nor Muslim am I

Never pondered over such topics, a simple human am I

Corruption or Communalism does not bother me

You are the ones who forced me to see

These aspects of yours, these dirty games you play

Alas! Still you project yourselves as gods with feet of clay!

You keel-haul each other over my problems

Without knowing them well, all your programs fail

Give me food to eat, place to live and clothes to wear

They are all my problems, with me – can you share?

--Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 1998

Existentialist

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:35:47 -0400

When I say this, friends

I say not to measure

Not to value

Not to preserve

Not to suggest

Not to rebuke

Not to profess

Not to confess

Not to advise

Not to admonish

Not to set example

Not to build metaphors

Not to contest elections

Not to win your contests

Not to ruin myself

Not to set you free

Not to indulge in nostalgia

Not to preach principles

Not to escape from you

Nor from self

Not to check proximity

Not to farther away notions

Not to fathom depths

Not to climb stairs

Not to succeed in attempts

Not even to make them

Not to rouse passion

Not to arouse emotion

Not to urge upon you

Not to make you ponder

Not to hurry the tortoise

Not to hasten the rabbits

Not to rule the earth

Not to impose ideas

Not to be immortal

Not to commit hara-kiri

This is just to say

That I say

Because I have to say

What I say is immaterial

It has lost its relevance

In a world where I am dead

The poet is dead

The lover is dead

The birdwatcher dead

The pacifist dead

The reveries dead

The thinkers dead

The reason is dead

Proposal

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:35:08 -0400

Tell me O love!

How can I express my love for you?

I know not how the great lovers used to do

Did they gift a flower as a memento

Or, their love, did they just kneel down and show?

Tell me O love!

Where from can I start showering kisses on you?

I know not where from the great lovers used to do

Did they prefer the cheeks, or the eyes or wide lips

Or, did they use to seal their mouths together and kiss?

Tell me O love!

What can I do that the world shall remember you?

I know not what the great lovers used to do?

Or did they write poetry and the world just mourned?

So tell me, O love!

How can I express my love for you?

I’m no lover, can’t kneel down and propose to you

So tell me, O love!

Where from can I start giving kisses to you?

I sense your beauty everywhere, where from can I start kissing you?

So tell me, O love!

What can I do that the world shall remember you?

I’m no Kaiser, can’t build a Taj Mahal for you

So tell me, O love!

What meanest thou by love?

I’m a novice, teach me the art of love.

Mother India

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:34:25 -0400

Fifty years of chaos and confusions

She has witnessed and now silently mourns

As a mother forgives her children

She has done that; they are still insane

Ere half a century, she was in chain

She was silent and cried in pain

Her children fought and freed her then

She asks now: Where disappeared all of them?

Where are they who loved her?

Who sacrificed their lives for her;

Why no doubt, today there is none

Whom you can ask to die for her!

--Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 1998

Love Unconditional

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:33:38 -0400

Your love is not for me to ask

It is for you to give

In return

My body is not for you to ask

It is for me to give

I have given away my heart

My feelings they called love

And all I could ever muster

Was courage to fall

Centred round my self

As its wont, I could never rise in love

All I remember is the passion

The commitments our bodies made

The moments of undeniable truths

And now it’s all so eerie

Does love have a logical ending?

The heart withers away, the mind is out of sight

What of my body?

The scars and the bites and the touches

Whose prerogative to forget?

I once made a compromise with my heart

Now the body refuses to withstand

The onslaughts and the insults

The amnesiac touches

The lips that are lying

If you must, acknowledge not the love

If you have to, stay away

But answer one last time

Why did you have to fiddle my body?

If you had to ignore it next

Pain slighted, dreams aroused, passion lighted

Honest gazes, trenchant brushes and strumming fingers

Now when you are gone; turned tables

Bapa

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:32:40 -0400

What do I write on thee, words are at loss?

“Be a brave general and true servant”

And you “dedicated me to society”

It was ten, I remember I was then.

Never felt like asking you if that meant

I was going to be away from home and family.

Father, one lifetime is transient. Yours. And mine.

Not all your dreams will result, nor my immaturity.

Popular minds do not speak a tale, a tale of honesty

Stereotyping I did not know, for it was not thine.

No thought-control. No ideological pill.

You offered me from Gandhi to Lenin

A God who resides in hearts and yet one

I could defy, you said it matters little

“Be a brave general and true servant”

And you “dedicated me to society”

It was ten, I remember I was then.

Never felt like asking you if that meant

I was going to be away from home and family.

And I saw the reflections of a struggle

Did not shelter in cheap history-texts

Your convictions that led you to prison cells

Your service for folks, oh so, were humble

Struggle is within a framework

Offerings

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:14:45 -0400

What will I give thee, you are the gift to me

How much to adore thee, you mean the love for me

When each moment spent are the times cherished

To wish you well, which day be chosen by me?

The night’s a façade, the day conceals

And my gladness, the stars too miss

My feelings how can they know

Those greetings on sale and marketed gifts

Who I pray and worship for you?

Where do I seek your well being?

What do I add to bedeck your day

When what I have is you as blessing?

No poem can ever suffice to note

Or a painter’s brush can ever coat

The shine of my eye, the pride in my heart

Words too feeble, and colors delicate

Have loved you to know you

And known to have loved you

If life has some things to crave for

Its to live my life beside you

Never in want will you be, for you are the spring

Of all happiness unbound that human life can bring

Your commitments for people in need will soon be fulfilled

Keep up the fine work, the wary World will surely yield.

--Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 2004

One Life

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:13:44 -0400

I have but one life—

Let me enjoy it to the fullest

Let me live well and not simply exist

Let me be free to make rules for myself

Don’t you interfere and pretend to help

I have but one life—

Let me love the lady of my dreams

Let me love my country and all human beings

Let me love the nature, those stunning scenes

Oh! selfish world—you don’t know what love means

I have but one life—

Let me read all the beautiful writings

Let me relish the magnificent paintings

Let me be a part of all those before I vanish

Don’t deprive me of those moments that I shall cherish

I have but one life—

Let me do all the good that I can do now

Let me bring a smile to faces that were sobbing till now

Let me find time to listen to all their worries

Let me indulge myself in answering to their queries

I have but one life—

Let me attempt at bringing peace among nations

Let me see to it that none in the world suffers

Let me dream and see diverse visions

Don’t prevent me from fulfilling these obsessions

---Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 1993

Blank Apartment

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:10:28 -0400

without you

feelings are nothingness

differences are in the sublime change of weather

days and nights are synonymous

life is a plain glass of water

and i quench the tastelessness

without you

--Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 2003

Taj Mahal (Trans.)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:51:48 -0400

For you, Taj Mahal is no less a splendor of love

Amidst the eldritch, obsessed are you with its trove

My beloved! Discover for me yet another place where we can meet!

Grandeur of royal palace is deliberately contrasted

For the commoners; it’s a sordid message so crafted

We mortals have no permit to tread the paths so strewn

With baits to allure us into that maze, to dream to its tune!

Before being inveigled into the royal sparks, my beloved!

You should have descried the mammoth trickery and fraud!

You could have felt the roars of your insignificant abode!

Countless peoples in our world have showered love in abundance

Who can claim their heartfelt love ever lacked sincere affections

But they lacked the means of advertisement, of crude exhibitions

After all, they were like you and I: submitted by birth to cruel situations

This monument, this mausoleum, this unmitigated embankment

These are apparition of regal wealth and unmerited enchantment

For the records of the wretched, these disdainfully antique afflictions

My Child, A Radical Human Being (Trans.)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:49:42 -0400

Neither you will be a Hindu nor a Muslim will you be

A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be

A bundle of joy you are, sans a given name

Disconnected from religions, that’s your gain

Religious texts have only divided humanity

My child! So far they couldn’t attack your sanity

Hence the clarion call for the revolution, will you be

A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be

Mother Nature warmly nurtured us as human beings

Alas! we forced our children into Hindus and Muslims

One small world was all that we were bestowed

Bigots among us created India and Iran instead

Destroyer of barriers, of this unjust world order, will you be

A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be

Religions preach hate—they are not designed for you

And they practice hostilities—not even an option for you

No good is this Quran since it excludes the Hindu temples

You disown the Geeta that mentions not the Islam shrines

Symbol of world peace, fighter for social justice you will be

Giving Back (Trans.)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:43:52 -0400

Am I conservative by outlook, or progressive by orientation

A non-issue this is, its redundancy to me is well known

My words like mirror, the reflections of myriad nature

What I witness is what I recite: sans color nor alter

I do not heed to the conscience of stars and the heaven

On my land of humanity, I have enough to shed tears on

All that I have to return to you, to give back in word

Is what I have gained from my experiences in this world..

---Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples' Poet, 2005

Sahir Ludhianvi (1922-1980) is the poet who was neither afraid of authority, nor afraid to be outspoken. Neither afraid of going to jail nor to voice against the prison system. Neither afraid of the momentary life, nor of the eternal death. His involvement in the Left politics in the pre-and post-independent India, in organizing the peoples’ theatres, in writing for the peasants, farmers and the factory workers should serve a reminder to the wordsmiths of the present day that there is indeed a tool to choose a side with. But that’s a side between the material and the mystical; between the working class and the owning class; to side with the profit-hungry or the wage-hungry.