Special Posts on the Second Death Anniversary of AKS
Today, 28th November 2013, falls the Second Anniversary of the demise of AKS. To mark the occasion, we are privileged to share four poems of AKS–three are love poems, while the fourth one is on the hanging of the Pakistani leader and former Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) by the Military ruler General Zia-ul-Haque–which was widely seen as rather unjust end of a popular democratic leader. This poem on Bhutto has, as far as we know, remained unpublished. It was written the very next day of Bhutto’s execution on 4th April 1979, and thus carries the powerful sentiment for the tragedy of the democratic leader among the intelligentsia and democratic activists in India and elsewhere. Bringing it before the reading public nearly 34 years after the poem was composed by AKS, who himself passed away two years back, gives us mixed feelings.–AKSCENTRE
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Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
A POEM FOR BHUTTO
Remembering you after you are no more
Seems to be a sin
I can’t help.
For I see my doom
Coming to take me from my bed—
Oh Lord, hold the sky,
It’s toppling all over the place,
While my father eats off my flesh
And does not say sorry.
Lord wherever and whoever you are
Take care of me
And
My man in heaven
Arun Kumar Sinha
Composed on 5th April, ‘79
It is indeed remarkable that an Indian poet stuck his neck out and wrote a poem about a Pakistani politician, albeit one who had gained some sympathy in most parts of the subcontinent for having fallen prey to a rapacious military dictatorship.