On 'our shock' over the Malegaon blasts...

For long the hindutva have called for
'mussalman ka sthan
pakistan ya qabrastan'

Made fun at them
'hum paanch hamaare pachees'
notwithstanding, the blatant call for
'hum do hamaare char'

All this while,
middle-class India went to work.
Lived our dream lives.
Earned in dollars and pounds
Only as glorified manual labourers though.

The poor shouted, and we shut our ears.
Let them fight for our so-called Hindu purity.
How does it matter, if a few monkeys
wipe each other out?
As long as we build, and exhort our enterprise
On their blood.

Development indeed!
And what better way of winning?
If we can achieve both
in the same game?
The convenience of the proletariat mass
fighting each other, in the name of religion.
Especially when we, the middle class
swoop in to divide the bloodied remain.

And one fine morning,
we realize
the joke is finally on us.
This bomb of theirs
is a bomb of ours.
Of our very own making.

Of our shared indifference
Apathetic
And it ticks down
3...2...1...

Still I Rise - by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

greer meets marx

Women's liberation, if it abolishes the patriarchal family, will abolish a necessary substructure of the authoritarian state, and once that withers away Marx will have come true willy-nilly, so let's get on with it.