Pilgrimage to Plurality (Sonnet 2499) – Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

Forget the canon, you can’t even make sense
of my titles, bleating like nationalist livestock,
and chanting like brainless bacon – you have to
have a certain amount of multicultural tendency,
which in a way, is your first test of pilgrimage,
moreover, it’s the key to the Naskar Canon.

If you have no desire to step outside your culture,
there’s no point in grabbing any of my text,
you might as well pick up a chinese or arab text,
and expect to be an expert while speaking only English.

My script may be English, my language is not –
remove your assumptions, transcend your disciplines;
it is only through pilgrimage to plurality,
that an ape ascends into humanity.

My goal is not to replace
white supremacy with colored supremacy,
or christian supremacy with muslim supremacy,
or blind faith with dispassionate logic,
I am a stateless weaver of human plurality.