Let Me Ask The Train Drivers As For Partition Tales Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

I do not the historians,
Let me the train drivers
As for Partition tales,
What did they
And how did they?

A few trains
Returning from
Or going to,
Which is whose
With an exodus of refugees,
Partition people?

I do not the historians
Neither the leftist
Nor the rightist,
Neither the communal version
Nor the political version
Want I to hear it.

I just want to see the photographs,
The photographs of the people,
The black and white photos
Of the Indian masses
Displaced and dislocated
Wayward and lost and missing

And for that I want to hear,
Hear the tales from the drivers
Who as a witness,
A witness to those
Saw them with the naked eyes
And can say it about.

The people leaving their houses
Going,
Going on the paths taking to,
Taking to
Unknown and unseen,
People turned out of their own homes,
People left to die on the paths.

People, half-fed, half-clothed
Indian masses
Of that time
On the bullock-carts, into the tents,
Under the trees passing,
Passing nights
As for unknown locations
To be taken or rehabilitated.

How to walk for miles and miles
On foot as pedestrians, commuters,
How will the old and the infirm
Telling a saga so cruel and bitter,
Partition saga of life,
The life of displaced and dislocated people?

People atop the trains,
The Indian railways of that time,
Crowding the compartments,
The bogey full with
And the trains reeking with
The people in dhoti and kurta
And the turban.

But God knows,
Why was the nation partitioned
And who partitioned
For what,
Whose interest was what,
What did they get it from
Giving unnecessary pains to the common people
Who have nothing to do with politics?

The ghost trains moving from
West Bengal to East Bengal,
West Punjab to East Punjab
And vice versa carrying the mass loads of people,
Partition people
Partitioned in haste
Without informing the parties,
Whose people where are they going?

Was it not a criminal offence to partition
The lands without settling them,
Was it not a criminal offence,
Who approved for what
And who hastened it the process,
Who wanted what,
What was whose vested interest?

The gory scenes of Partition,
The bloody and brutal bloodshed,
The carnage
Want I not to see,
Hear it about,
The bogies full of people,
People sitting atop with bundles and bags,
Hanging onto,
Is this the history of modern India
We are going to make a tryst with?