"beginnings and ends"

this was a poem i wrote when SSR asked us to reflect on the day at Kashmir University:

well... something like a poem.

--

hope is dead
some say
fifty years hopeless
a hundred years more without
for an identity
as true or false as any

untouched by the cosmopolitan merge
that civilizes many
torn by a rage against a motherland
hated beyond hate
torn by the yearning for a memory
that never was
fuelled by a grief one should never know
all for an identity that never was nor will be
for ever more

the World changed
as she slumbered under occupation
now she awakes to
find hope with no other
hope for herself is lost too
as also the will to reconcile true

what the future holds for this land
i do not know
where shall the memories of
hate and hurt go?

time is a healer, true
as is the end of it;
but which shall come first
for this burning paradise now?

will it be India or Pakistan
or an independent Kashmir?
who knows?

i fear none of them, for they will
not allow a peace to endure.
stranger things have happened, i know,
the Iron curtain did fall
but we know not yet
its complete use

which way forward?
which way back?
which will lead us on
the right track?

where pride is involved,
and territory and identity,
i fear we shall walk this country
hand in hand with misery
for a while longer before the tide turns

when will it turn?
one can never know
maybe at the end of history
or of all time
we will find out
when the time is right
let it not be
when time itself runs out
rather sooner
while we still light
this life.

- aditya