Time To Speak Out Poem by Aniruddha Pathak
Time To Speak Out
First they came asking for women
Who ‘painted were and were dented’,
And I kept mum— an indifferent man
That was nowhere by the said taunts tainted;
They came again asking for a woman
That crossed Lakshman1 line much painted,
I still maintained mum to me sacred,
Smug, my repute remained radiant red;
Then they came in western values to blame,
To them Bharat and India were not same,
Aloof, I felt there was nothing for me,
Not seeing what I wished not to see;
Some faulted her for not taking due care,
Not pleading to her molesters to spare,
Wordless, witless still, way-lost, lost of dare,
I stood there with a distant detached air.
Emboldened when at last they came for me,
It was too late for bell within to ring,
There was no one around to speak for me,
And found my own silence too deafening!
I scarce did know time there’s to be silent,
And time to speak out, not to be pliant.
Lakshman1 line: Refers to the epic Ramayana in which Lakshman
draws a line beseeching Sita not to cross it (for her safety) till he
and her husband return. Here, the line is referred to as much painted
because pundits interpret it to further their own narrow views on it.
Reading this poem, the words of Martin Niemoller, an anti-Nazi
theologian, come to the mind. He spoke on German intellectuals
during the rise of Nazi power:
‘First they came for socialists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t
a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak
out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.’
Shocking comments of god-men, politicians, and their callous kith on
recent spate of rapes and cruelty upon women reminded me of the
foregoing words of Martin.
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-Introspection | 01.01.13 |
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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5/3/2024 5:39:42 PM # 1.0.0.1119
" Western values to blame" ! Thanks for sharing this poem with us.
Even I had to read my poem of 2013 again to know what it was about. Thank you Edward Louis for the comments.