Intolerance is not a new issue in our country.The Illutrated weekly of India, once had an article by Arun Shourie(?), in which he categorised hate and jealousy as national pastime.I hope he has not taken to it.The following poem shows how troubled a legacy we have had.
The Ambiguous Fate of Gieve Patel, He Being Neither Muslim Nor Hindu in India
"To be no part of this hate is deprivation.
Never could I claim a circumcised butcher
Mangled a child out of my arms, never rave
At the milk-bibing, grass-guzzing hypocrite
Who pulled off my mother's voluminous
Robes and sliced away at her dugs.
Planets focus their fires
Into a worm of destruction
Edging along the continent. Bodies
Turn ashen and shrivel. I
Only burn my tail"-Gieve Patel
Never could I claim a circumcised butcher
Mangled a child out of my arms, never rave
At the milk-bibing, grass-guzzing hypocrite
Who pulled off my mother's voluminous
Robes and sliced away at her dugs.
Planets focus their fires
Into a worm of destruction
Edging along the continent. Bodies
Turn ashen and shrivel. I
Only burn my tail"-Gieve Patel
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