Sense



What do you want from me?
     You will be my eyes.  You will give me direction. You will
lead me to soft palms and tender hearts.  You will beg for me.
But first something you should know: I am a man who lives a
lie.  To you I am a blind beggar, someone who collects change. 
Little do you know that though my eyes seem clouded over and my
step faltering, I see everything.  I can see into the cracks of
a false smile or the shiver underneath the sternest face, because
no one hides anything from me - with me they are real.  And like
the truly blind, I have learned to strengthen my other senses. 
I can look into the sky and smell the hunger of eagles; or hear
the rumble in their bellies.  I can taste the meat from a sick
cow and tell exactly why it died.  In pretending blindness I
observe so much more.
     But I do not let things affect me.  It is not for me to
judge.  I ignore messages from my trembling muscles and
screaming nerves.  I have learned to control that shudder,
to direct it into the ground with the smallest turn of my
ankles.  Because that�s where soft sentiments should rest, in
the dirt. 
Where shall we stay?
     My home is the shade where I rest, the corner where I fall
asleep, the tree beneath which I take shelter from the rain.  I
have no family, no one to share my secret with, no one except
you.  You are young in years, small before my vision.  All my
life I have watched others like you, but you never saw me except
maybe as an iron statue, an old banyan - an ageless part of the
scenery.  I have observed you grow, I have seen how hopes turned
stale, how the stars fell from the skies to prick tender
feet.       
     I have felt how students have changed, how their posters
were ripped apart by bullets; their aspirations addled with
drugs.  Their faith is now packaged in bottles, tablets and
powder.  I have heard lame muktijuddhas ask each other whose war
they fought and what it meant.  But some I know have used
their war stories to wage a new war; this time against
their own people.
     I have seen how the names and faces of heroes� change, how
yesterdays' martyrs are todays' villains.  I have heard history
books alter their tune, how their songs are lost to desert
winds. I have noticed the bald that comb their head and the deaf
that dance.  I have watched those who sleep on the roof of moving
trains.  But I have stopped asking myself what these things
mean.  There is little sense in the roads we share.
What have you seen?
     And on these roads I can feel the people that have been
snapped down and ground into the dirt till they are nothing more
than stains; leaving little to mark their going.  I have seen
the man that prays on the back of a speeding truck, balancing
himself on a load.  Another I scrutinized in the mosque,
sitting in the shade of a standing servant�s umbrella.  I have
inhaled the darkness of our factories, gray choking gases that
numb the workers into obedience and repetition.  I have seen the
thieves that wear flags on their cars.  I have also noticed
eager children save their change to buy their own, little
knowing what to do with their youthful ideals.
What shall we eat?
     I have eaten from garbage dumps, side by side with crows
and others like me.  I know what the street vendors hide under
their vegetables.  There are restoras where they sell the cooked
flesh of dog, even man, a fact often known by its customers.
And my heart did not skip a beat as I swallowed the morsels.  I
have drunk from the heaviest rivers of our land, picking out
dead birds and fish.
What if we are caught?  What if they see your lie?
	I have built a stone wall in my head.  I will never be
caught.  Brick by brick, I have gathered the reserve to stare
unblinkingly at those who have had their faces melt under acid
wrath.  I feel true sorrow, but I also know those who refuse to
let their spirits down; those who still have spring and strength
in their walk.  I have met children covered with gaping sores,
laughing and playing on empty stomachs.  And I have seen them
stolen off the streets, bundled into vans, but my stride did not
swerve an inch.  I have stepped on the glass that litters our
beaches, and with each fresh wound I could feel our earth clench
in agony.  I have met those that drive against the traffic on
one way streets.
	I have watched public beatings.  I have seen victims
left hollow and bloody, their cynical eyes emptily focusing
nowhere.  Everybody wants a victim today.  Someone to release
their inner demons on.  It is difficult to care who or where you
hit.  My victims are the people that give me money, the ones
that I fool into feeling sorry for me.  They are the ones I can
laugh at, their softness making me harder.
Where have you been?
     I have run with our deer and tigers, crouched amongst
falling cover, the woods of our heritage being cut down for
furniture.  I have seen what gathers in the holes in the roads. 
I have felt peace in the hills, I have also seen the quest for
independence, but these are the oldest of hymn, as no one wants
to share their land.  I have smelled the gas that seeps out from
the earth with dark embrace.  And my temperature did not rise a
degree.  I have watched the human flies that climb buildings to
scrub dirt and grime from windows- risking their lives so that
others can view a cleaner world.  I have seen women in black
saris face the west and pray.  I have tasted the magic venom
collected from snakes - the venom that induces trance like
states.  I have seen the selfish son murder his own mother, and
as he carried her dead body to hide I have heard her speak, and
warn him to mind his step. 
I see the storms rise in your eyes, so I will stop. 
What is your answer? Are you with me?









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