Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "speak-up"

When the blood is boiling and conscience is screaming,
Stop not wishing for a messiah to appear.
When the heart is beating and the mind is restless,
Sit not praying for the miseries to disappear.
When the veins are burning and nerves are revolting,
Stay not cooped up in a cocoon of petty pleasures.
When the lungs are choking and cells are aching,
Stay not inanimate out of insecurities and fears.
When the spine is bending and the head is drooping,
Stay not silent submitting to tribal identity.
When the knees are trembling and the throat is thirsty,
Stand not frail as servant of conformity.
When the eyes are teary and lips are dreary, never consider sitting still.
Obliterate loyalty to atrocities of the norm waking up to liberationville.

Where you need to be calm,
You burst out in rage.
Where you need to be on fire,
You walk in silence and not engage.
Where you need to listen,
You scream like a loudspeaker.
Where you need to speak out,
Somehow your words disappear.
Where it requires to be humble,
Pride takes over your humility.
Where your blood needs to boil,
Your veins seem to run empty.
The right use of temper is an act of revolution.
Put it to good use and you'll nourish civilization.

I am no Gandhi, that I’d sit quietly and spin a wheel,
While people suffer in the clutches of imperialism.
I am no Guevara either, that I would shoot anyone,
Who looks suspicious, in my revolution for freedom.
Gandhi and Guevara are two extremes of human struggle,
One glorifies submission, another heralds new oppression.
Neither is fit for an infant world aiming to be civilized,
For one lacks backbone, the other weaponizes assumption.
We may take a little from Gandhi, a little from Guevara,
Without rigidity we may administer them accordingly.
I am an accountable human living in a world run by biases,
So most times I’ll keep quiet and act as a harmless dummy.
But whenever inhumanity goes overboard wreaking havoc,
The human bulldozer will rise to cleanse every epoch.

Nonviolence is nonsense – or to be more accurate – bookish nonviolence is nonsense. Nonviolence is to injustice, what homeopathy is to illness – it claims all the credit without any of the responsibility. Placebo brings comfort, not change.

Does that mean, violence is the solution? That’s the problem, you see. This prehistoric world has an instinctual affinity to black and white concepts – to binary concepts – and a gigantic blind spot for grey areas. Justice is too grand an exercise to be contained by the primitive dualistic nonsense of violence and nonviolence.

Let me put this into perspective with an example. Bullets are an act of violence, silence is an act of nonviolence – but there is a third option – the option of the slipper.

Slippers are more effective in fighting bugs, than bullets – bullets make martyr of the bugs, slippers put them in their place. When the slippers of a nation’s civilians combine, even the mightiest of tyrant is bound to fall – be it a state head, court judge or law enforcement officer.

Whenever a bunch of bugs turn the courts into a cradle of animal masculinity – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the parliament into a cradle of fundamentalism and bigotry – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the police stations into a cradle of badge-bearing barbarism – grab hold of that household bug-repellent you wear on your feet, and put them to some good, wholesome use. Treat the corrupt and bigoted like your children, and do with them as you would your own child when they go astray.

When your child starts to bully other kids, if you adopt pacifism and pamper them further in the name of nonviolence, instead of taking stringent steps to nip their megalomania in the bud, it’s very much possible, they might grow up to be the next orange-haired terrorist to roam the oval office or the next musky moron who takes pleasure in destroying people’s livelihoods and providing safe haven to hate speech and disinformation to satisfy their giant ego and puny mind.

So, I repeat – pick up the democratic superweapon from under your feet and put it to good use – treat the privileged orangutans like your children and put them in their rightful place, without actually harming them. Your world, your rules – remember that. Slippers are democracy’s first line of defense, bullets it’s last.

Bi’ gün değil, bugün,
bugün yaşamalı,
bugün parlamalı,
bugün uyanmalı,
bugün yürümeli.

Wear your wounds like crown,
not tomorrow, but today.
In front of your thunderous resolve,
intimidating clouds all fade away.

Where lips don’t speak, eyes do –
where eyes don’t speak, backbone do.
And once backbone has spoken, all the
militaries cannot render it untrue.

Poetry, my nationality,
words, my brethren.
To the world I’m monsoon,
for inside I’m barren.