This was not supposed to be

 

Harashit Bala

I don't belong to any party;
None has ever seen me in any political rally;
My name's never been included in any white paper,
I've no address-no identity;
I merely know my country, its soil
Is the only right address that I have.

So the news of winning the war
Touched my heart in time;
The flag got hoisted-Asad's blood-stained shirt too;
The village farmers held up the flag, with them the labourers,
And the factory workers, the bullet-stricken university students,

It's shocking

To see when at the Liberation War meetings
The imbeciles deliver their fake swansongs
And claim illegitimate fatherhood of success.

It's really appalling

To see the pearl-string smeared with my mother's tears
Hanging round the necks of some monkeys,
It's them who evicted my mother from her home,

I see fake pictures stuck on the walls everywhere;
What place is this we live in! Who are these people!
What're they madly celebrating here? What kind of death-dance is this?
-Villains are fighting with each other like foxes and dogs.

This was not supposed to be

We won't get a second mother once we lose our real one;
No sister would find her brother them;
I won't get solace hiding my face into anyone's bosom;
Or forget the pain of losing everything!

This was not supposed to be

That we've to forget our father's name, ignore our identity!
Never did we promise to repay our birth liabilities
Mortgaging our motherland once again!

The expanse is sown with promises innumerable-
There it is, it's almost there, they say;
Why have you come, you rakhoshi!
Better you hadn't come at all!

Translated by Prof. Abdus Selim