Seventy Years Of Freedom

August 13, 2017

By Ananya S. Guha

Mother, seventy
years of freedom
have shackled the
house that you made
with the British furniture.
I steadfastly tie them
with a nation’s manacles.
Even as the yellow house
grew, the nation shrunk
into cavernous hollows
of windswept children –
sunken eyes
stained teeth
cadavers.
A nation brought primordial
urge of death.
Now I swallow all symbols
of oppression, forget them
to be caught in the cross fire
of a nation’s freedom.
Seventy years is a long time,
I passed only sixty in this nation
whirling into torrid seas
bludgeoned with
blood and grime
of people who do not understand
these seventy years of slow, slow time.

Bio:
Ananya S Guha is Regional Director, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Shillong.

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Read the latest issue of Cafe Dissensus Magazine on ‘Muslim Life in West Bengal’, edited by Mosarrap H. Khan & Mursed Alam, Gour College, West Bengal, India.

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