The Unfortunate Exodus

By Muzaffar Ahmad Nengroo

My Pen trembles when I see Shambles.

It can’t bear the burden of tyranny

Of trampled emotions and the deceived nerves.

Ignorance of the Faith, Arrogance of the metal,

Swept away Thousands and Thousand innocents;

Along with its terrible and tumultuous currents.

I can’t and I won’t dare,

To witness the Eye-Origin floods;

Marred ‘innocent and mature’ claims alike.

What was it…?!

Our failings, your misfortune;

Their arrogance or Their monopoly…!

Victims are you and victims are we,

You outside the homeland

And we inside the vale all alike;

Of the crooked bigotry and Chauvinism,

Nourished by the nectar of cruelty and the spoils.

I have heard of the 90s…!

And am discerning those crumbling structures;

Grooved ‘Mud and Concrete’ walls alike.

Desolate homes are raped

Of their glory and grandeur.

Bare entrances, lawns, yards and foyers;

Looking for guests and children;

Creepers and climbers alike.

I am haunted by those elapsed

Meek and bleak gapes;

Mutilated emotions, unheard sobs-

The apparitions of my visions.

Bemoaning gazes peep

From the derelict verandas.

As if pleading acquittal

For their purported crimes.

I see flooded eyes,

Feel the throbbed hearts,

Oblivious of the coming tribulations;

In the alien and the unknown lands,

Climatic and diasporic persecutions!

I feel the burns and the bites

In the alien lands to the victims of bigotry.

The skin that used to be nourished

By the cool breezes and the streams

Was scorched and tanned

By the treacherous heat and beams

Under those tarpaulin tents and dreadful shades.

Tell me the pain and the suffering

Of leaving one’s land and boarding.

How can I narrate those horrible tales!

That led hundred thousands hapless & homeless.

The owner of a home turned

To a caged bird or prisoner of lament.

For years and months,

Tears got mixed with meals-

Breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

Elders, adults, teens, children and hopes

All were reeling under the same plight…

Decades passed by and I witness

No more tears, pains or blood.

Wounds heal but scars leave a trail;

Everything has changed now and yet

The vale is lamenting the anguish

Of the vacant dwellings and barren yards.

The dazzling spring has lost its bloom,

Nothing has left but gloom, gloom and gloom…

Note: This poem has been composed in the context pf Kashmiri Pandits when their exodus was nothing but tyranny, bigotry and unleashed terror.

By Muzaffar Ahmad Nengroo