To Live With Honour

My way is not the way of violence, I thought

I have seen enough killing, I thought

I have seen the land burn

I want only to be left in peace

I want to tend my fields, bring up my children

Find a way to pass the years

Honourably.

Why should I kindle the fire, I thought

My village is my world, I thought

The quarrels of kings are the quarrels of kings

And nothing to do with me.

My family and I, we could live out the storm

I thought, and come through

Peaceably.

A man came, he flew down from the sky

In a helicopter from the big city.

He read from papers and told us

That we were now all free.

While men with guns stood beside him and frowned

He told us we now had freedom, and we had

Democracy.

A man from the city came and he took my land

Which my ancestors had tilled for centuries

He told the court that it was his by right

And he had bought the documents to prove it.

So the judge gave him my land,

The judge smiled and gave him my land

Legally.

The foreign soldiers came, they came to my house

In the dead of night, and broke down the door

They made my daughters cry, they shouted at my wife

They took what they wanted

My family's honour, my honour

They took it all, and said it was by the rules

They said it was done

Properly.

My son found a bride and planned to wed

And I called the village to the marriage feast –

There were other guests high overhead

And they bombed my son and his wife

They snuffed out their wedded life

Before it began, and afterwards they apologised

Far away in the city they apologised

Nicely.

The police chief said he wanted my girl

He wanted to make her his wife

He wanted to get a sex slave for life

Now my daughter walks in fear

For she knows he hovers near

Her dreams are filled with his voice, raised

Threateningly.

The Taliban came, they gave me a gun

They said they were of the people.

They said I could stand up

Or I could lie in the dirt

They said it was my choice to make

They warned me not to make a mistake

Then they went away, into the night

Quietly.

Today at last I took up the gun

I knew it had no answers

But the choice before me was stark

Die in the light or die in the dark.

I do not fight for Taliban

Or for Freedom or Democracy.

All I can do is choose my way

To live or to die

Honourably.

 Copyright B Purkayastha 2012