‘If I were a Brahmin…’

When I thought of this,

I was not servile. But

emancipation, I saw, was vague.

Right.

Liberty.

Worship.

Habit.

My mother bestowed.

I cannot engage in tautologies.

And, why should I?

When I was thinking about the vanity

of the epoch,

I felt like returning back-

Back to many thousand years.

To rationalize my aborigines,

To pervert the intruder’s mind.

This is simply an idyll now in the lacunae.

So, when I saw one day,

urchin born, smoke cigarettes.

I thought of a sermon.

But, how could I?

I am not a Solomon in their eyes.

And, they don’t understand that.

I would interrogate my progenitors-

were we urchins earlier?

A mosque enjoys democracy and politics.

And the rulers- Brahmins they are.

One is despise, as he is not of the strata.

He has to walk behind-

oblige and show affirmative.

He is an utter failure, but tells me

-is a Brahmin.

Does it smell sumptuous?

If I were a Brahmin…

then, had I been baffled

in such a cobweb?

If I were a Brahmin,

Had I felt as an intruder,

a crusader, an alien?

If I were a Brahmin,

Had I called myself a builder of colonies?

We can never decolonize.

We are in the colonies of subjugation.

We are applauding the rulers and-

feeding the snake.

Should I have ruled in peace,

everyone would have been Brahmins.

Could I get another legacy,

a different history?