Among poets dead and gone
Only a very few
Come alive to tickle again
A world gone mad, askew.
Your verses, Ofearless Faiz,
First shook the applecart
Of Islamist Zia’s tyranny
Over thinking head, and feeling heart.
The same verses now assail
Hindutva variants;
The idols in your song, they say,
Are Hindu gods, not tyrants.
Worst of all, post-revolution,
You leave intact your Allah,
When we know that triumph belongs
Alone to our Ram Lala.
When did a dead poet ever spawn
Such cross-fire confusions,
Where words are darts that strike at once
At contrary positions?
That you should be lauded, reviled equally
In either enemy land—
How troublesome for hate-mongers
To hold so human a hand.
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