Chinese On Top Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

Today is the twentieth of October 2008
I am in Tawang, arrived here today,
Forty-six years after Chinese overran it.

I was then doing B A English literature
In Thiagarajar College, Madurai
In the southern State of Tamilnadu.

I was in Second Year and news
On that day was of Chinese aggression
And all newspapers blaring it forth.

I remember attending students’ assembly
In the open, Principal Varadachari spoke,
And spoke as eloquently as ever.

I remember the waves of patriotism
That swept through me,
To see how the enemy can overrun.

Now on way to Tawang, I had a chance
To read the book by Neville Maxwell
On India’s China war, and feel different.

Not that I believe in all he says,
The terrain makes nonsense of lines
McMohan or any other as distinct.

After all these years, I’ m here on
Twentieth October, and feel bad
That I felt then blindly patriotic!

While I strongly disapprove of war,
And all violence, the visit along the hills
Of Eastern Himalayas, around Tawang

Monastery, in the land that gave birth
To Gautam Buddha makes me feel that
We still keep an army is a shame.