Poem for Prakash

never before
i have seen such a face like yours
One side of a face wants to live
with an eye looking
at its future of a crippled life.
One side so dead with a blind eye
with the smashed jaw
and broken bones.


"Brother! touch this
See! the bones are all broken
into pieces"

I touched your face
knowing i would write this poem
helplessly peeping through a night
that tells me 'I dont belong here'

first time i saw you
you were lying half unconscious
at AIIMS
with the nurses giving you injections
that your generation already has more or less
unconsciously on some hospital beds
or consciously hiding from the wind that carries
the smell of a rotten valley

You came to Delhi
with a bullet in your head
with one eye blind
with a father who sold away
his land to save a son.

Perhaps Delhi is the origin
of the bullet in your head
yet you come here carrying
your half dead body

Doctors they looked at you
with their face squeezing out
like rats
You came out saying with the best smile
i have seen:
"they say "bahut mujkil hai""

i distracted you saying
"there was an article on you in tehelka"
you asked "Is my photograph there?"
you wondered how your friends would react
after seeing you.
But your face is the face of our generation
every broken bone is the broken dreams

you believe you will recognize
the one who shot you at that night
Yes, slowly this world will forget
only you will not forget this world

and your father in his slippers
walked away for his sick sister
Leaving us alone stranded

And we shook hands
but you passed me the anger
and you left me
carrying the unconscious land
on your small shoulder saying
with your innocent smile
"i will catch my own vehicle to Manipur Bhavan"

I asked to myself
"who left this land here?"
I see every pieces of it in your face
I see it turning its back on me
as you walked away
like it is prompting;
I can't do anything like every ship of fools.
I watched you fading away
And i found myself in a market
of potatoes and tomatoes
looking for something to cook
that could make me feel home