Dateline, Dhaka, 25 March 2006
(To my fellow Freedom Fighters)
Silken afternoon light
Slips through the fingers
Of minute hands
As wind-up clocks
Clear their throats
And spit out the hour.
A wistful shadow
Clouds our eyes:
Swiftly gathering dusk
Suggests linked hands
And stolen kisses;
No such luck for us:
Cynical romantics
Pretending insouciance,
Talking realpolitik,
And--let's face it--
Regular wankers.
After the usual
Overfried comestibles,
Sick jokes, syrupy tea,
Round of three-card poker
And cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes,
Who'd have thought
We'd be waylaid
By History--
Sounds portentous
But how else to put it?
As we picked our way
Around improvised barricades
To reach home under exploding skies,
Amidst slain bodies
The ultimate choice--
Fight or flee--
Fixed us in a gorgon stare.
We stared back, unpetrified
(Though scared) and vowed
To fight till all were free.
It was precisely
Half a biblical lifetime ago
Though on this day once again
It feels like it was yesterday.
Slips through the fingers
Of minute hands
As wind-up clocks
Clear their throats
And spit out the hour.
A wistful shadow
Clouds our eyes:
Swiftly gathering dusk
Suggests linked hands
And stolen kisses;
No such luck for us:
Cynical romantics
Pretending insouciance,
Talking realpolitik,
And--let's face it--
Regular wankers.
After the usual
Overfried comestibles,
Sick jokes, syrupy tea,
Round of three-card poker
And cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes,
Who'd have thought
We'd be waylaid
By History--
Sounds portentous
But how else to put it?
As we picked our way
Around improvised barricades
To reach home under exploding skies,
Amidst slain bodies
The ultimate choice--
Fight or flee--
Fixed us in a gorgon stare.
We stared back, unpetrified
(Though scared) and vowed
To fight till all were free.
It was precisely
Half a biblical lifetime ago
Though on this day once again
It feels like it was yesterday.
Kaiser Haq is professor of English at Dhaka University.
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