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nilanshu agrawal
nilanshu agrawal is a lecturer in english at a p.g.college of
india, and is interested in literature and aesthetics. nilanshu1973@yahoo.com
Works on this page:
a sonnet
cause of fundamentalism
what is orchestra?
A Sonnet
A civilization is outraged.
The hydra-headed monster
Of terrorism prepares coffins for the innocent.
A six-month-old's flesh is scarred.
Petrol bombs at Godhara. *
Mocking at the concept of human rights.
Where are fundamental rights?
Where is humanism?
Where is secularism?
Where is socialism?
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere.
Only the naked opportunism of politicians.
Godhara reminding the poet of 9/11
But, in India nobody sheds a single tear for the immense loss
of life.
*Godhara is a place in Gujrat, India. During the early half
of 2002, a
severe tragedy occurred there. Petrol bombs (i.e. burning bottles
full of petrol) were thrown at a train, killing a number of hapless
people.
Cause of Fundamentalism
Why did Godhara occur?
Why did 9/11 occur?
Who is behind Gujrat carnage? *
Narrowness of mind.
Non-acceptance of the opposite view.
The antithesis is refused.
The other view is discarded.
The followers of the other ideology are exterminated.
Dirty ethnocentrism!
Dirty jingoism!
O my peers,countrymen and religious leaders
Shun the superiority complex.
Take inspiration from the significant other.
The other is not be exterminated.
The other is to heard.
Let the storm of other ideas enter you
As the tempest of new ideas
Was accepted by Buddhism **.
Hinayana was followed
By Mahayana and Vajrayana.
Then there will be no Godhara.
Then there will be no 9/11.
Then there will be no Gujrat.
Only the scattered light
Of multi-colored rainbow.
*In the wake of Gudhara massace,there is the frenzy of violence
in Gujrat.
**Buddhism has three sects- Hinyana, Mahayana and Vajrayana.
What is Orchestra?
What is orchestra?
Symphony, he replied.
Mingling of rhythms.
'It may be so,
But I find orchestrated rhythms somewhere else'
'Where?'
'In India'.
India a land of co-existence.
We create synthesis
Out of conflict
Of thesis and antithesis.
No view is final for us.
There is always the scope for further argument.
Religious tolerance is our motto.
If there is Vaishanava cult,
There are Shaiva and Shakta ideologies.*
So,India a perfect example
Of orchestra and symphony,
Of dialectics and tolerance.
*Vaishanava, Shaiva and Shakta are the cults of Hinduism.
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