Hood Winking Tragedy?

by Ananya S. Guha / August 3rd, 2025

Etymologies are distorted,
Are they immigrants or migrants
That you are extirpating from the
Land they have known for years?
The soil they have nurtured carefully
To build homes not houses?
Edifices that withstood time
And the floods
Why do the poor only suffer
The annihilation of time, humiliation
Of being asked to go, or dumped in
Borders
It stinks, this rightist radicalisation
Yes the poor will suffer, because
You can doubt everything that you
Can about them, their money
Their papers, even their faces
You pigeonhole them
Into immigrants, foreigners of
Dubious antecedent or accent
And, the bludgeoning of truth;
This poem is prayer, not protest
Born out of the rumination of
Measured spaces, a chunk of
History or, hood winking tragedy?

Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India, where he was born and brought up. He has been writing and publishing his poetry for the last forty years. His poetry has been published in both electronic and print formats such as: Indian Literature, Other Voices, Osprey Journal, Glasgow Review, The Literary Nest, Up The Staircase, Asia Writes, Art Arena, Praxis Online, Muse India, Your One Phone Call, In Between Hangovers, The Peeking Cat Magazine, Post Colonial Text among others. He has also written widely on educational and social matters. He has ten collections of poetry and his poetry has been anthologized in various collections of Indian poetry in English. He holds a doctoral on the novels of William Golding. Read other articles by Ananya S..

This article was posted on Sunday, August 3rd, 2025 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.