An intense protest poem by Aparajita, in Different Truths.

The sun drinks my lemonade,
Stoic of the clouds
That swell up with my tears,
Husbanding a water we have
Abandoned and aborted;
And made Kashmir
A dry liquor!!
The lout sun-splashed my lemonade.
It trickled down her skirt;
She shrieked in fear,
A ravenous sipping;
Her daughter sleeps dead within her.
The sun gulps down the sugar cubes,
Swathing my emotions
I garnished my lemonade with;
Waxing his trip to Kashmir,
A lazy day in the snow,
The picturesque white snow,
Polished with money,
Flowering in the ‘tourism of India.’
But my lemonade loves to grow stale—
A scathing red.
So will the sun grow one day
And saffron will burn
In that wildfire.

Picture design Anumita Roy

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Aparajita Dutta

Aparajita Dutta is a writer, poet, social activist and a research scholar. She has completed her M.Phil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University in 2015. She has been the contributing author of Tell Me a Story, published by Penguin India. Aparajita has written for other books, magazines, and websites as well. Her interests are football, gender rights, disability, and translation.