





Where does it come from,
To fill their labyrinthine pockets?
To feed their senile illusions
Sermons atop glimmering stages.
Who put it all into their hands
That they might judge and abolish us?
I look deeper inside tonight
For I have stumbled on their truth
I am not alone here
A little late though I might be
For years at end they cursed
Giving hope of a later life to destroy this
I was amazed at how they survived
No more! No more surprises!
Alas!
Flash Lights!
Curiosity reveals the ancient face
Scarred and stinking
The man with the huge belly
To save his taxes of his taxes
Of the women he sells at night
Sends forward a donation!
God in his mercy
His two faced disciples
Eagerly thank
The goodness of the deed
Come on, now is the time
Where are your screams of blasphemy?
Where are the echoes of your curses?
Now shall sleep the poor without fear
Now shall sleep the honest without hate
Now rise the morning anew
Close down the divine gate.
We have always sung
Songs to some wretched tune
Always sung to ghastly the ghastly full moon
That being the desire that has led us
As I quietly look back in time
Gross history we have created
Man has never stood by man
And animals man always hated
The full moon psychedelia
Blood bath and vengeance
Swords, musket paraphernalia
Our legacy, culture, heritage
Return to me my childhood
Or give me my beloved death
Among the dirt of society
I think I waste my every breath
But there is not forest to run to
No animal left sane
Nothing but concrete jungles
We’ve bled to the end of the game
“Nature thy vengeance
I shall embrace
As mercy”
What would happen if
Two great poets went to open war?
The birds would flock astray
The night lose its stars
What then must I imagine
Of that wonderful most glorious night
When two of the best, intoxicated,
Went for the verses fight
Words as their swords
Couplets as their shields
The king as their judge
Poems each wields
Ghalib in all his arrogance
Gave himself all the glory
Zaug in all humility
Ignored the pompous story
But the king beckoned Zaug
That he should in couplets reply
Thence flew the birds astray
Thence hid the stars in the sky.
* On 2nd April 1852, Ghalib insulted the court of the last Mughal King by proclaiming himself the best poet in the empire, when in reality the king himself was an accomplished poet. Upon this the King asked Zaug to relpy and thus al night were thrown couplets on couplets at the wedding that were published in newspapers the next day.
There was once an empire
In history incorrectly shown
Its court a place of religion
Its people humans as their own
There was that old empire
Vultured by foreign religion
Eaten by ignorance
Brought down by its own
Ruled from the city of palaces
A city unrivaled in the world
Its end it met in mutiny
An emperor's ghazal's forgotten word
Ruins that were made with time
Ruins that should have been restored
But whatever that was left of it
We learnt with care to ignore.
It had its last Rajah
The last of the lost empire
Old with wisdom he was exiled
From his beloved land he loved
Zafar, what must you think?
Lying alone in a grave in Rangoon
How must you see the city now?
The city forgotten so soon.
You must wonder
What I made of it
As I often dream
Of your shining glory
Tears I must have given you
But tears also for me I made
What a wonder this city was
Look what of it I did create
Zafar, Oh! mighty Mughal
Resurrect that eluded greatness
If not in reality
Then in my dreams.