Irtidad - Poem Urdu - ارتداد
Channel: owais sarvasukhsevaka
Date: 2012-05-16

This is another poem in the Taseer-Bhatti series of poems.

Since this poem is very heavy on the Urdu side, despite the title which says that this is a Hindustani poem, I am reclassifying it as an 'Urdu' poem.  Of course, I still believe that the Urdu / Hindi divide is really a political and communal divide, not a linguistic divide, and hence I disapprove of it.  ... :-) ...as if my disapproval is worth anything at all!

Here is the copy/paste of the Description of the first poem in the series 'Aye Musalmano'...

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This is a Hindustani (Hindi - Urdu) poem that I wrote soon after the assassinations of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti in Pakistan.  I was appalled not so much by the killings- for they are frequent these days, but by the reaction of the general public in Pakistan.  To me, this was the sub-continental Muslim society at its ugliest.  It seems that you can do any atrocious thing in the name of Islam, and Muslims will not find the common sense, humanity, courage, or justice within themselves to oppose it.  If this is what the Muslim society in Pakistan has come to, I fear what it could do to itself in Bangladesh and India. 

I wrote this, and several other poems, essentially as a requiem for the collective heart of the Muslim society.  I fervently wish that I am wrong, and Muslims will yet reform their society.

I sat on these and other poems, for I feared the cost that I may need to pay for this outspokenness.  However, I now believe that the cost of not speaking up will be higher. The former means that at some future date, it will become difficult for me to live within a Muslim social milieu.  The latter means that starting now, it will become very difficult for me to live with myself.