Guest Writer By Akshita Chaudhuri
Lahore,
salaam.
74 years have passed by since we last crossed paths and even today when the sun rises, I wonder if it casts a glow on your badshahi mosque, does Jhelum still wait for Ravi’s letter as trauma grips her lifeless roots, and does hiran minar look longingly at laal chowk, the betrayal tearing up pieces of her skin and firing love shots towards her grieving heart while she dreams of a night under the graveyard stretched like the sky.
we mistook gunshots for lullabies, perhaps that is why Indus refuses to visit her children and taj mahal echoes the blood-curdling screams of men who hid letters behind books in dusty old libraries while staring at sunsets in a broken city.
Hindustan shayad khafa hai humse, issiliye milne aajkal nehi aati hai meri maa aur tumhari ammi.
do mothers have a religion? Hindustan is my maa and your Ammi but we grew up in her lap while running around Gulmarg and tossing snowballs at Islamabad? what is different between you and me, is it the colour of our bodies that now act as crematoriums burying the caskets of dead children, or is it the way we smiled as we drank our grief down like red wine?
/ Kagaz ke parade hain
Taale hain darwazo pe
Paani mein doobe huwe
Khwab alfazon ke /
the old man on the street refuses to go back home and lies on kargil’s lap as he looks on awaiting the return of his son who never turned back 22 years ago, Arnab falls in love with Zoya as she reads the namaz and Khushi find love more in Urdu rather than Hindi but does love have a religion and do languages need to be terrorized?
laal quila lights up while I remember our friendship, we made pinky promises under the shooting star and midnight sky, perhaps that is why they never came true.
/ Neendon mein gulistaan hai tera-mera hi hai ye aashiyana
Raaton mein taaron se yun toot kar mere tu laut aana /
namaste,
delhi.
Akshita is a 16 year old high school student from Kolkata. More often than not you’ll find her obsessing over poetry books, sufi music alongside a cup of coffee. She considers herself to be the first of her kind and says, revolution is her synonym. To read more of her works, find her on Instagram
