If Hindi was a respected language in Hindustan,

I would have called my poem "Yaadein" (Memories)

                              By Anupama Bhargava

since it is not I take my bearings out to the west.

But I can't, completely.

It appears to me that I have started from the center of a moment that I know is going to stay.

Suspended, thus, are some of my memories lingering like audience in disbelief at the end of a play.

Others are no better. They are like residue on yellow chattering teeth, sucking

natural light when ever possible to flaunt their existence in foreign terms.

But to us Indians it still appears like meditation to courageous.

Three Hundred Fifty years of struggle and sacrifice seems to have vanished

in the refusals to except what is ours.

The streets are still gray in the light of the morning.

If only these memories had a language of their own.

"Yaadein teri aati hain,

Par koi inko zubaan kyun nahi deta?"

If only some day I could find words for them.