In the wee hours of a Monday morning, I checked in to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad latently excited to fly to my second home country, Bahrain. I stood in the queue with my heavy and drowsy eyes struggling to stay conscious. I kept swaying my head right and left. Tender moments, affectionate hugs, tearful farewells filled the spaces of emotional silence. Amidst the blink of my eye, I suddenly noticed a big blue hoarding of our chief minister smiling and welcoming us to Come and explore the opportunities, with a slogan “Andhra Pradesh, A proud past and A promising future” On reading this, the axe of irony immediately struck my thoughts realising the stark situation of this dividing land.
Walking through my wobbling thoughts,
Emotions tangled in barren knots
I sat at the boarding gate, awaiting
With my co-passengers, conversing
As the flight geared its gravity into the sky,
Like a bird unfolding its wings to fly
My eyes connected to the disconnecting land
Fading into the hazy cloudy band
Pacing through the speed of blank serenity,
I look beneath, doubting my identity?
Neither the borders, nor the divisions,
No sketched maps, no deliberate collisions
I wondered where all these would exist
Perhaps, in the walls of a human heart, they persist.
A Centrally located state gone into terrible labour pains
With hearts knifed into borders, breath suffocated in decisions
Vague rejoices, Puzzled protests, Hollow mirth
As Mother India, of 67 years, gives birth
To her 29th child on this earth
And multiplying her diversity’s worth.
Power strikes for the lust of power,
Road blocks preventing the growth of a flower
Shattered is the common man’s livelihood
In an ambiguous justice for brotherhood.
Regionally confused, Nationally united, Internationally Identified
Perplexed in my thoughts, I landed
Into the country, branded as Indian, I immigrated
With a ray of hope that we billion remain integrated.
- Swathi Rekha
