'You wanted your freedom:
now take it!' said
one policeman,
beating young men about the head,
his long white baton splashed with red
'Dont' beat us.
We are all Indians!
a young man said,
hardly out of boyhood,
a slip, a slim potentiality,
lying with compatriots,
at random angles,
fallen leaves,
cast yarrow sticks
(viral immortality),
strewn across sidewalk edge
and gutter
(running red
to drain grill)
tenderness streaked with red weals
about the hands
and feet and head,
T-shirts darkening.
But the policemen had been set on;
from high up their instructions came:-
BJP,
breaking the dam of civilization,
loosing the flood of primal hatred;
and so they carried on beating,
premeditated
into silence,
until the youths were utterly immobile -
Freedom given. Job done.
Left them for dead. Some were. Dead.
I see red. I see red. Toss and turn in my bed.
I am a tire with no tread.
.........................
On a BBC World News video clip.
