A swadeshi shawl drapes
over bones beneath bare skin.
Even in the cold, beneath the ceiling fan,
a furrowed brow shivers바카라
and the Gandhi in the tattered photo
rests in a frame drained of color.
His innocent, toothless smile,
beneath a tousled white mustache,
is adorned with a faded plastic garland,
and below, a lightless tube light.
The humble witness box,
the red tape of justice,
black-coated chairs,
a table worn with cracked rexine.
Clocks that no longer tick,
windows veiled in torn, dusty curtains,
files gasping for air
amidst rusted cabinets.
Tremors in husband-wife intimacy,
shameless bloody sagas of fathers and sons바카라
a charge-sheet framing the innocent knife.
바카라In the name of God, I swear by truth!바카라
But what is truth?
A signed affidavit?
An unsigned whisper?
Or the slow unveiling of something higher?
He walked the path of seeking,
a fakir, staff in hand,
guided by the light he found.
Perhaps he once crossed these halls, carrying files,
stood in the box as an accused,
and even the bench of justice might have bowed.
Now boxed within a frame,
he hangs on every courtroom wall.
If asked, 바카라Where is your satyagraha now?바카라
Would he look away from the unfolding trials,
his gaze fixed
beyond the window,
beyond the door,
toward the horizon?
(Translated by Kamalakar Bhat, Professor & Head, Post Graduate Dept. of Ahmednagar College, Maharashtra)
Banu Mushtaq is an international booker prize-winning Kannada writer, lawyer and activist
