At Xinjiang- From A Dairy Of An Ughyur Poem by AMITAVA MAZUMDAR

(1)

We're like alien tribes
Of rugged Karakoram
Disassociatedfrom the rest
Where clouds oftenstand
And peep into the bird's nest.

The sun shines above
Like a blooming apricot
Through the Tian Shan
Where the herds roam in silence
In a lazy trance.

Theygraze together
With their heads earthward
Unmindfulof time and place
Whether it's shine or rain
Upontheir endured flesh.

We live with animals
Animals live with us
Under the same roof
With patience and prayer
With no hurry to go farther.

The lapping waters of Illi
Meandering around the Tian Shan
Where animals kill their thirst
Withoutmiseries and mistrust
Winds down from the hill to the meadows
The clouds stood sometimes with big shadows


( 2)

It was a night thick in darkness and silence
After wiping off the day's fatigue and violence
A thump on the door raised us all in terror
The police the Red Army waiting at our door
We're called to step out without looking back
It was a bad dream glued in our eye and stuck

The entire village was sleeping then except a few
And the night dripping down her luscient drops of dew
lined up like criminals with nothing to ask or say
as if we're dogs in the streets homeless and stray

We were poked and teased like mean subjects
Eyed like suspicious terrible objects
in the broadway or in the markets
Under infuriated Chinese stare
We were often unclothed and bare

Being Ughyurs we were to be moulded
Quran and Islam got us emboldened
We're born terrorists criminals bloodsuckers
As they say we're abnormals not like others

Inside an old building surrounded by metal fencing
Our lives were thrown to shape up more or less like Beijing
From the dayone we're utterlyseen as scavenger
Our children cry for their mother's lap to get warmer
denied and refrained, we don't have our basic rights to wager

Few who had protested either silenced or disappeared amass
at the detention centrein Xinjiang,was grimlyobvious
Flogging, kicking, lashing with all might and power
Like terrified cattlewe clasped our breath inside deeper


Every day we were indoctrinated with values of socialism
If you wished to be in China, no Quran no Islam
No skullcapsmosques would be in your heavens
we're taught everyday with ways alien to our lives
it's like that our souls were unwrapped from our bodies afar
you're not to pray, you're subject to humiliation and torture.