who are you?

by Raju Athokpam, with inputs from Ringo Pebam

you are proud to be in general quota
whilst your brothers and sisters get big shots in the name of caste
you think you are trendy, sanskritizing and hinduising
just to end up having ethnic clashes with yourself
you ignored the fights of minor groups
who were indeed protecting you
and now you don’t have any answer
to those Kuki’s questions

still you are damn chauvinist and you soliloquize
“Whatever man, i am still the one. numero uno, you know”.

when you meet a new you, you don’t ask what he does
you only ask for a lunch someday, namesake
because he and you are spoil brats, who do nothing in life.

but you are a real genius; you act like a millionaire with only a penny in your pocket
you can punish your ma with your domestic demands for clothes and bikes
you go to capital for graduation; a five year long study

you like losing control and you keep dying by guns
is it that you are patriot,
broken hearted for your motherland?
or are you a businessman with a gun?

* (Input from Ringo Pebam)
so proud you are, of the shiroi lilies
so you write of them, the beautiful lines

it's the hill men who  protect the lilies and the hills
as you sit and talk at the leipungs about state integrity

your ego still tells you are a genius and they are fools
because you are from the beautiful tampak with the general-quota?"

Synergy

by Raju Athokpam

We don't need the name
We don't need to draw the line
We don't need arms or riots
We don't need Manipur or Nagaland

We have different ethnicity
We eat different food, speak different languages
But too narrow to differentiate
As we evolved from one root, back in time

The dark past has embed our fragmented history
Personal to political violations
We sufficiently have learnt from the past
Let us keep aside win-lose and play win- win

You and I are neighbors
And always will be until the world ends
You and I are the used one
Be it in economy, politics or religion
Let us unite and be who we are
And a synergy will prevail everywhere
We are just one
We are brothers and sisters in arms

Euthanasia

by Raju Athokpam

your firm hand and fierce eye
and I see the black hole where the gun
barks on my dusty-sweat-coated forehead
this tear-stained eye
longs for yet another moment with
you in this hell

your hygienic hand and your motherly look
with that tranquilizer on that syringe
on my veins, to relax me
down this exhausted soul
wants to cuddle you for the
warmth in this heaven

right or wrong
for good or for bad
you are the one who kill
suffering is my other name
that you have made me
then again you pity my miserable life
and you mercy kill me
amongst you even fought who to mercy kill me

with your gun’s little hole
you advice the trigger
and you become my birth-master
your gun is all-in-one tool for you
you use it everywhere
even to gain a grain of rice your gun is your
strongest drug makes you forget everything
even the consciousness of being alive
well, enough of euphemism
I said euthanasia means ‘shoot yourself’.