A Visit To Lalgarh Poem by Imtiaz Akhtar

Hopes frozen, children silent.
The bridal Greenland-barbed and barren.
Tea being served to personas.
A few cameras -terrifying us
as if they were serpents eyes.
A child with a slate stood.
I asked her where is the teacher?
‘he is on the leave for the last 60 years’
came the jolly reply.
‘Yes one of those Indian leave’ a toothless
bhardolak interposed.
‘Never mind the police is here’ some one joked.
‘One is dead and the numbers will swell’ told an
optimist reporter.

The corpse before us had three neat holes on it,
It’s a ‘military-styled-ellipsis’, commented Mao Himself.

I tried hard to cry but couldn’t,
You know why?
These days one dead hardly invites tears.