Not Books, Ban All Banishment Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

Books banned bare banished be, nor burnt to naught,
Beacons of light can't be confined to jail,
Art censored seldom so stays long unsought,
As all inquests condemned are to derail.
Societies not left free to function fail,
But go tense dissent-filled and friction-prone,
Like ocean caught by turbulence of gale,
Proof, freedom fairs fair if left on its own.

And no art's obscene, books nor paintings drawn,
Obscenity or be it beauty, lies
In a beholder's eye, for, all seeds sown
As most minds scarce from depths of bottoms rise,
It's hard for a bailiff better to see
O than that of the sheriff's attorney.
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Much of intolerance seen in India and elsewhere seems deliberate. Take the recent ban on Salman Rushdie on attending a Lit Fest in Jaipur. Take the court cases on the well-known painter M F Hussein, who had to stay away from his country of birth till he died in London a few months back; take Taslima Nasreen of Bangladesh being driven out of her karmic land; take banning of books, paintings, and movies, even historical essays. But have they remained banned? What is banned seldom remains banned. If anything, the book becomes better known, if not a best seller.
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Sonnets | 05.01.12 |
Topic: work (of art) , intolerance, today