Inder Salim
I said to them, spontaneously
Take away your Kashmir,
Just take away, It is all yours.
They laughed, then looked
At each others faces with disbelief,
But grabbed quickly: The Azadi
Freedom in their hands was water
As pure as one drinks
At the beginning of a river.
Their hands were as big as valley itself
And they dancingly moved towards
Their homes like the river itself.
This Freedom, still water like,
a tender sprout like,
So they went to martyrs graves first.
There they quenched the thirst of
The Dead, who by technique
Drank a water within this water.
This freedom still water like,
Had to be taken to a place like
Secretariat, if one goes by The Theory.
But they instead kept on gazing at its
Myriad faces, which perhaps delayed
Its instant shelving into structures
That was the time it revealed its
Unpredictable face, which unnerved even
Those who held it lovingly in their hands.
Its sudden surge inundated all, all
The barbed wiring and dead walls;
Crossing new frontiers.
New thoughts, new soil and old
Seeds were passing through the
Alimentary canal of earth’s friendly worms.
This melted beasts, what beasts melted
before, now dissolving their occupying ideas,
joined the chorus:
‘Love’ was declared:
The only God.
to stretch limits
therefore to be continued.
Inder Salim is a Kashmiri performance artist and a poet based in Delhi.