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Kumar Ambuj
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No one has seen it clearly till today But like a virus, it can be anywhere Whenever immunity is low, it catches hold If someone runs away, a gunshot hits him on the back If he stays still, a gunshot hits him on the forehead Then only comes the official statement: No one has died, only a few people are missing Then in the search for the missing people many other people start to die In the police stations, in the courts, In the verandas of secretariats and hospitals In the fields and barns, in the queues, in the prisons, in crowds Amid the springtime happiness of the majority they fall like the falling leaves The winds sweep them away into the universe Even the judicial enquiry committee learns nothing People begin to die in such a way that they themselves don’t know they have died Dead men have no homes They are expelled even from the footpaths Everywhere everyone only asks them for their papers Wives, children, neighbors, they all say: get your papers The government, too, solaces: you’re alive, just show your papers Work, water, food, laughter: they forget everything else and look only for their papers But in their whole world, these papers can’t be found anywhere Then they themselves begin to say, We’ve been dead for centuries We died in the womb itself, we had no papers We are naturally dead, we have no papers Our ancestors came to live on this earth before papers They all left a long time ago and they left no papers The government says, We never kill anyone For what we would kill someone but people have to obey the rules made for the people, by the people We are simply enforcers of the law Official deaths are a superstition Everyone dies their own death The newspapers and the TV channels remind us of this truth day and night. (Translated from hindi by Annika Taneja) |
Kumar Ambuj is a well-known Hindi poet. His first collection of poems 'Kivad' (1992), the title of which won the Bharat Bhushan Agarwal Award. 'Cruelty' (1996), is the second collection of poems. After that 'Anantim' (1998), 'Atikraman' (2002) and 'Amiri Rekha' (2011) poetry collections have become particularly popular. His awards include Bharat Bhushan Agarwal Award, Kedar Samman, Makhanlal Chaturvedi Award and Vagishwari Award for poetry among others. |
