yeh safar bahut hain kathin magar

javed akhtar

What to do when the night is so dark, when the path is indistinguishable from the forest, and even the moon seems indifferent? Sometimes words give solace, not because of universality of experience, but because of the certainty with which they profess truths, the way they erect shelters around troubled souls, with the arduous care of a mother.

Sometimes, one cannot see the endgame. Sometimes the heart loses sight of the object of desire or hope. It is not easy to hang on to the frayed thread of principle, or to hold belief in our bellies, like some local brew. There are those who must drink their sorrows, without complaint, who must keep a straight face seven as it splits their guts, their very existence is an act of rebellion - today's poem immortalised by R.D. Burman's lilting melody goes out to those who do not have the privelige of choice. Even the most basic assertion of identity is protest. The children who have been killed in police firings, the houses that have been broken into, those who woke up one morning to a new reality- betrayed by the land that they thought was their own.

This poem penned by Javed Akhtar, probably when he felt more deeply, and with more honesty the reality of struggle, and the value of a single human life; this poem goes out to the lakhs of Muslim families uprooted, the many Muslim youth whose lives this state has stolen. It is important to confront the nature of this concentrated ethnic cleansing that the state is attempting, in order to ensure that it remains an attempt.

I am no one to offer solace, so i turn to poetry, i hang on to the knowledge that words bequeath, and history affirms. For those who don't know what to think anymore, let the evening of sorrow wash over you, let poetry heal and remind that it is an evening, still. Let it give us strength, to fight again, as twilight passes us.