Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "himalayan-sonneteer"

'Let us just be human,
This year, and every year.
With this hate-defying hope,
I wish you a happy new year."

“Just Need to Be Human (The Sonnet)

You don’t need to be an arab to stand by
the muslims, you just need to be human.
You don’t need to be an immigrant to stand up
against hate crime, you just need to be human.
You don’t need to be a woman to stand up
to misogyny, you just need to be human.
You don’t need to be a queer to stand up
to phobia, you just need to be human.
You don’t need to be colored to defy
discrimination, you just need humanity.
You just need to be not stupid enough,
to confuse diversity with pathology.
Every person we meet is our neighbor.
We cannot exist as human beings,
till we wipe each other’s tears.”

Christ was not a christian,
Vyasa was not a hindu.
Mohammed was not a muslim,
Abraham was not a jew.
Buddha was not a buddhist,
Confucius was not confucian.
Zoroaster was not zoroastrian,
Naskar is not naskarean.
Nanak was not a sikh,
Mahavir was not a jain.
All that we ever wanted is,
To remind the humans to be human.
Move past the person, and delve into spirit.
There you shall discover, divisions do not exist.

Vakna, Stå upp, O Modige Atlas!
Ta världen på din axel,
Förkasta allt som är ojust.

Awake, Arise, O Atlas Supreme,
Take the world on your shoulder.
Denounce all roots of hate and hurt,
Wielding your humanitarian viking thunder.

I don’t write for creatures of the gutter,
I write for those craving for open skies.
If you can give up your golden fancies,
I’ll give you a world beyond the lies.

Despierta, levántate, oh loco amante!
El mundo entero está a tu cuidado.
Give up your aphrodisiac of wild ancestry,
We are human, cuando nos descubrimos en cada humano.

You are sanity, you are sentience,
You are the lifeforce of destiny.
You are conscience, you are concord,
You are the end of animosity.

Give up your chase of goldmine,
Labor in the caverns of soulmine.
You shall be rich where it really counts,
Beyond the dreams of animalkind.

If you must love, love without any agenda,
If they love you back, your heart grows softer,
If they break you, your heart grows stronger,
Either way, in act of love there is no failure.

Our mutual vulnerability is our greatest strength,
Across all insecurity let us be vulnerable together.
In hopelessness we are each other's compass,
In vulnerability we are each other's vigor.

United we are alive,
Divided we are dead.
Integrated we're lovers,
Divided we are duffers.

Intellect is not the answer,
Belief is not the answer.
These only amplify what we really are,
Good becomes great, jerk becomes jerker.

Be love and be light -
watch the fall of worldly fright.
Be free and be responsible -
watch the society take its flight.

Give me some sunshine,
Give me some rain!
Why the hell am I asking you,
When I’m the steward of my own reign!

Ship of society is sinking,
O Young and Bold, now hail the helm!
Come to the rescue of those lost at sea,
To hell with the nonsense of shame and fame!

My religion is to rescue the fallen,
My creed to care for the persecuted.
Faith, reason, nation, I heed none,
Obliterated in love heart is illuminated.

Shedding all fears both ragged and posh,
Let’s go play in the courtyard of the cosmos!

If I were the head of state,
my first act in government will be,
to dissolve the government,
and redistribute all powers of society,
to experts in their respective fields.

Civil servants and experts run a nation anyway,
While brainless politicians take all the credit.
Time to give credit and power where they’re due,
Putting an end to the circus of representatives.

Instead of trading one incompetent fool for another,
We gotta rotate the civil servants office to office.
In a civilized democracy, civilians are the law,
Never you forget that, never let anyone forget it!

If I were the head of state, that is the end of state.
Dictatorships empower leaders, democracy empowers citizens.

“Burn my books, and go lift the world! Let me live in your blood, not in books. Yak benim her kitabımı, ve git – insanlara yardım et! Kitaplarda değil, kanında tut beni.”

“Kral Fakir (Servant King Sonnet)

İnsanı seven herkes resul,
Yardım eden herkes kraldır.
Bencil servet hayvanlara mübarek,
İnsan ben, kimliğim kral fakir.

Every human who loves a human is apostle,
Every human who helps a human is king.
Animals may feast on selfish luxury,
As for me, I am a servant king.

King is the servant,
Servant is king.
Being is the harvest,
Harvest is the being.

Life lived for self is goods,
Life lived for others is gift.
Time spent on self is product,
Time spent on others is present.

You can spend thousands on the shallow,
Still it won’t be enough to fill their eyes.
Spend a single wise cent on someone in need,
It’ll fill their heart with new vigor of life.”

Call me misafir, call me göçmen,
This heart of mine is always migrant.
Şan ve şöhrete ben muhtaç değilim,
Benim derdim dünya, dünya dermanım.

Call me gypsy, or call me refugee,
This heart of mine is always migrant.
I’ve got no use for silicon or gold,
World is my bane, world, my ointment.

In Sanskrit I am Abhijit,
In English I am Victor.
In Arabic I am Ghalib,
In History I am Reformer.

Call me whatever you like,
Befitting your culture.
I have no reservations,
Above my human nature.

So many tongues, as many names –
Some call agua, some call pani.
Conquer the tongue, spirit is the same –
Some dub it divine, I live as humanity.

Al-Shams to Alpha Centauri,
All occupied lands will be free.
Till there is smile on every face,
All happiness is blasphemy.

Happiness is not an imperial merch,
Freedom is no colonizer’s heirloom.
Joy is no bigot’s ancestral bequest,
Earth is not a zionist hand-me-down.

Divide and rule is the law of animals,
Unite and integrate is law of humanity.
One human life is worth more,
than all the gas reserves underneath.

Gaza is not a place, Gaza is a wake up call,
to the peace-crying humanity.
Awake, Arise, O Citizens of Earth –
Till all of us are free, none of us are free!

Poet* is martyred so poetry can live,
Monk is martyred so holiness can live.
Reformer is martyred so society can live,
Dervish is martyred so the cosmos can live.

Sufi is martyred so serenity can breathe,
Scientist is martyred so reason finds light.
Philosopher is martyred so curiosity lives,
Saint is martyred to keep the promise alive.

The just are martyred so injustice ends –
they diss us woke, we couldn’t care less.
*Shairs and seers, we are sad figures –
It’s from our wounds, the world draws courage.

Walk your wounds, surf your suffering.
Amidst self-lovers, martyr is the king.