Among poets dead and gone

Only a very few

Come alive to tickle again

A world gone mad, askew.

 

Your verses, Ofearless Faiz,

First shook the applecart

Of Islamist Zia’s tyranny

Over thinking head, and feeling heart.

 

The same verses now assail

Hindutva variants;

The idols in your song, they say,

Are Hindu gods, not tyrants.

 

Worst of all, post-revolution,

You leave intact your Allah,

When we know that triumph belongs

Alone to our Ram Lala.

 

When did a dead poet ever spawn

Such cross-fire confusions,

Where words are darts that strike at once

At contrary positions?

 

That you should be lauded, reviled equally

In either enemy land—

How troublesome for hate-mongers

To hold so human a hand.

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