A Curse Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

He sported long nails, and a Baloch beard,
His elder brother lay buried, few fields away,
And owned thousands of hectares of irrigated lands
“The villages belong to us”; they were herding ‘animals’,

The local administrator, called deputy commissioner,
Sat on his feet, and he was giving a presentation
Tackling famine. The rest-house we were seated in,
Was built by a USAID project. Sumptuous, elaborate,
“If you don’t have food for Haris, how did you afford this? ”
The deputy commissioner retorted, much agitated,
“When I was like you, I also asked silly questions”
And that “You will learn with time”.

Theentourage was taken to the elder’s grave,
Who probably had died from drinking spurious liquor.
Who in the land of the Sufis, had soiled the earth,
With his abhorrent presence underneath,
Smelling the pungent odor, spread all over the trees,
Carried by the innocent birds, and the putrid air.

The gluttons were chewing on the bones of Malla fish, caught
From the Keenjher Lake, and the Haris, as if a lost tribe from Africas.
The children dying of hunger, starvation, drought stricken,
Despised, dispossessed, diseased, unable to rise, punished.
You are a curse, you are a shame, you are an abominable creature.

-Hari or Haariis a landless peasant, especially in Sindh, Pakistan. The Hari (peasant) works for the Wadera (landlord) .

-Keenjhar Lake commonly called Kalri Lake is situated in Thatta District, Sindh, Pakistan. It is 122 km away from Karachi and 18 km away from the town of Thatta.

-on the news item that the number of dead from famine in ‘Tharparkar’ has risen to hundreds.

Sadiqullah Khan
Islamabad
March 10,2014.

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