Partition 1947 - A Poem by Usha Kishore

Partition is central to modern identity in the Indian subcontinent, as the Holocaust
is to identity among Jews, branded painfully onto the regional consciousness
by memories of almost unimaginable violence.    (William Dalrymple)

Usha Kishore

this subcontinent is a nation no more no more it is a wretched body

of broken bones flesh gut and blood spilling across railway tracks

across wine red seas across the politics of deceit across a faraway island

that ruled the seas only to be split up by history and its own people

tired of divisions tired of being slaves of bigger nations who ruled

land sea and sky an island nation showered by the curses of its colonies

who trembled under its foot curses showered by centuries that quaked

under the roar of its cruel canons its brute desire to conquer the world

this subcontinent is a nation no more no more its suicidal hands

slicing off its sea its land its sky mapping its own desires of self-rule

its terrors in the wake of its own reforms its fears of its own thirty million

gods who metamorphosed into blood and gore its two nation theories

that created more nations of discord among its heterogeneous races

its multifarious languages its nefarious rituals its bloodthirsty people

descending into chaos in a motherland torn apart by strife leaving

a million songs unsung a million tales untold a million dreams undreamt

this subcontinent is a nation no more no more its everlasting mutinies

its war mongering dynasties its power hungry leaders spawned

by bigotry and animal passion all falling under the spell of an island

kingdom queen of all nations ruling the waves this subcontinent

its geographies marking its histories its languages chronicling its cultures

its blaspheming men raping its women birthing a generation of bastards

hacking a nation’s breast splitting open its womb this dark subcontinent

is a broken down cannibalistic goddess created by fair men with fairer

dreams of a better world for themselves in hill stations in summer capitals

in a virgin land that prostitutes itself to white masters a land of culture

subjugating itself to anarchy a land of peace opening itself to violence

its hapless female soul trapped between many libidinous male gods

descendants of some other sky who write a crazed and bloodied history

of a myriad lives trampled in a myriad border crossings on the breast of time

this subcontinent is a nation no more no more this subcontinent wallowing

in bloodbaths has no beginning no end its seething memories stretching

across the centuries a standing testament of imperial follies a distortion

of historical trajectories that eclipse nations making trysts with destinies

at midnight when the world sleeps this subcontinent will divide into two

its cities ablaze its furies unleashed smothering all sense and sensibility

shrinking its languages groping for lost words and time weeping in funereal

silence on a maimed land a mutilated apology of a nation sowing seeds of

discord and the mother nation waging an inglorious war on its glorious Raj

this subcontinent is a nation no more no more it lies cowering

under the mantle of never ending night when wolves howl

when vultures tear open its guts when myths devour its children

when daybreak is a legend that only happens upon other skies

this subcontinent will weep until the end of time in blood and tears

for tearing itself asunder like some monster child tired of its own

screams this subcontinent and its seismic shifts of ideologies

its vicious politics of partition defining the contours of its land

sea and sky  defiling its people like a plague an eternal curse hangs

upon its people in the poignant cry of an old nation self-immolating

at the altar of  freedom sometimes scarlet sometimes stygian

sometimes silver like lightning piercing the heart of a weeping sky. 

(Inspired by William Dalrymple’s article, “The Great Divide” on the partition of India, 1947, in The New Yorker, June 2015)

Setu, August 2017