Burning
June flicked a matchstick
against a crosspatch,
the fire roared over our fields.
The stubble has been burning since.
We plunge knee deep
into water cannons
transplant paddy into PDS shops,
grow basmati more fragrant than Pakistan's,
less free than a democracy.
Policed by batons, we
de-weed our ranks of vested interests,
add fertilizer to the barren concrete
of 7 'Lok Kalyan Marg',
hope from Jantar Mantar
to view collective struggle
in constellations.
Plough through the inter-state boundaries
and cry when news of our sons dying
at the border
makes us die a little,
at a barricade.
Tear gas is not to blame.
We walk barefoot, our feet thrum
with the song of the soil.
Run through golden stalks
irrigated by our sweat,
storm the National Capital(ists)
like a Western Disturbance.
The stubble has been burning since.
A student of literature, politics and history, Tript's interests lie in children's fiction, Partition studies, and feminist readings of English, Punjabi and Urdu literature. Her work has appeared in Jabberwock, Jabberwock Online, JaggeryLit, Lucy Writers' Platform, The Bombay Review and Slaughterhouse Collective.