FAQs

FAQs

What makes a southasian?

The colour of my skin?
In a land sold on fairness creams?

Common language?
Only one shared sentence: death.

Shared history?
Wasn't all Empire was it?

Ancestors?
Didn't yours kill mine, and
Much before Partition too?

Geography?
One end's dry as a bone
The other riven by river & sea.

Contiguity?
Big enough to hijack a plane
And find a sanctuary.

Trade?
If one's smuggling
Basmati across the wire.

Food?
Only by the lack of it.

What makes me southasian then?
Not global warming for sure,
That makes me global,
Not local like

Receding glaciers,
Receding coastlines,
Water harvesting,
Power cuts,
Rickshaws,
Made in China,
Maid in Singapore,
Avian flu,
Despair,
Disparity,
Celebrity,
Film stars,
Monarchs,
State reprisal,
Ethnic cleansing,
Riot,
Shortage,
Inflation,
Embargo,
Sanction.

Right, so how do we mend fences?
Don't mend fences, demolish them,
Not mosques, blow up myths,
Not people, share water,
Not prejudices, open borders,
Not hostilities, oh god, not again
These fatigued clichés
Filed away, fished out again
Recycled at climate-controlled,
Bottle-watered seminars
Filtered away again until
The next tranche of funds
Arrives.

I didn't say, what makes me proud?
I said: what makes me southasian.

~ Anmole Prasad writes from Kalimpong and earns a living as a lawyer.

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