Take A Break! | Pratishtha Pandya

by Pratishtha Pandya *

I AM SO GLAD, YOU ARE ASLEEP. I have asked your mother to recover your phone from your room and bin it. On your mother’s phone, I shall tell you why.

Your latest post has gone viral. It attracted ninety-one thousand viewers! More than forty thousand replied to you till my last count. What they say, I would not like to read out to you. They all recognise you as woman and would do to you what is often done to a woman these days. They use words that we never heard even from the street loafers during our college days. So, please, please, when you wake up, do not ask for your phone.

You take a little break... Take a break. Take a break. Leave your home. They have made your address public. Do not respond to any loud knock at the door. Leave the city because they have found all your friends and relations here. My name and address are public. So, go away to a distant land. I rang up my cousin in Trinidad. She is ready to welcome you there. I will drop you to the airport. Please take a break. Take a break. I know you will refuse to leave India. I know what you would say. In that case, at least do this for me. Please do this for me. Listen to me and do this.

Do not go through the Akbar Lane, some Muslim houses are burning there. You will be gulfed in flames before you know. And keep away from the Veer Marg where a mosque is being demolished right now. You wear a sari and do not cover your head or face but the flying stones will not know your identity. You would be stoned to death. And in the vicinity of the Kashmiri Gate where you go for picking up second-hand books, a lathi-charge is going on. Oh, the police has just opened fire there. I must ask you to stay away from far too many places. Better you bolt the main door of your house from inside or move into the garage. One bullet or one dagger can end it all.

Give up your mission. Give up you profession. There are enough people to take notes and write about things. You keep quiet and just do what I am suggesting. Pleading with you. Come immediately to my place. We will slip out undetected. Will go to the road that is quiet at present. Not been found by the warriors because it has no temple and no mosque! It has beautiful flowerbeds on either side. Those colourful petals dancing in the wind, fresh water, fruits — everything is there and not a man wating to do abominable things to you and to do you in.

Do not worry about poetry. Can’t you see what the world is like? A poet does not march on the street, does not wave flags. A semiotician thinks twice before crossing a street and going close to the mob. You can do poetry sitting in Trinidad.

They say poetry does nothing. They are wrong. But I tell something to poetry. Remind it of its huge responsibility for an entire culture. Poetry, think. You are the mother, mother of our language. You are supposed to guard and protect it. You are to teach people to rise above the times, but if you start shouting slogans, what will be the future of our language? Under whose influence you are ready to betray literature?

Someone is out to distort language and literature. The country is burning. No humanity left among its people. In the name of religion people are killing each other — yes, all this is disconcerting and painful. But look at the spring, the rains, the sky, even Radha, Krishna — they are not all dead, are they? Why do you break your head over the same old politics all the time? Just listen to me – you also take a break. Silence yourself for a short while. I will read the Geet Govind and not miss you. Go to some place near the sea or in the mountains for a few days. You will also have a change of scene. Love is eternal and so should be love poetry. You understand what I am saying, don’t you?

(*The poem’s break from traditional structure and form is part of a conscious design and part of the message that the poem tries to convey. The original Gujarati poem was written five years ago. Adaptation by L K Sharma)