Forget-me-not

I do not know,

I do not know,

While I perch on this branch,

Why do I gaze at the other branch

that protrudes out at the opposite side?

With this big fat vulture on my left,

yawning from time to time,

I am engulfed halfway through

Without ever its knowledge.

I do not know

I do not know

If the other side is bright and blue,

As I always imagined it’d be.

I am too exhausted to build the nest,

to search for the needed twigs.

To behold the invisible colorful metropolitan upper middle class bitch,

Running around the streets all day, barking at every passers-by,

with hardly any sound coming out,

frustrates me more and more.

Oozing out of my mouth,

is the mixture of ingredients,

purging out, pushing its way through.

I want to wake up at that other side

Where I don’t have to worry about the bullets

nor the nights, where I can frantically express myself,

puffing out several smoke rings, with lots of brownies and muffins

and thangjing, and ooti, and chagempomba.

One thursday in November 2000.

Arrival of AFSPA-

armies, guns, bullets, bombs, suspicions, killings, deaths, roar of cries, widows, orphans, widowers, rapes, molestations, bomb blasts, sound of gun shots, massacre etc. etc. etc.

 dreams, hope, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, homes, dignity, citizenship, rights, justice etc. etc. etc.

Day 1.  Hunger strike began (november 2, 2000)

Day 2. Still continuing.

Day 3. No, she hasn't eaten anything still.

Day 4. No, not even a single morsel.

Day 5. Counting

Day 6. Counting.

Day 7. Counting.

Day 8, day 9, day 10, 11, 12, 13………………………

Accused her of committing suicide. Threw her in the jail.

(yes, the armies have the right to kill her, but she doesn’t have the right to kill herself)

This is their story, this is their logic.

In the meantime,

if you remember she is still fasting, still starving.

The days are still counting……….365, 366, 367……………

700, 701, 702, 703……………………………………………………..

2000, 2001, 2002, 2003……………………………………………..

4000, 4001, 4002………………………………………………………

She is our inexorable eche sharmila.

She is a human being. She has a stomach, she gets thirsty, she gets hungry, she wants to live.