Revisiting
A known and familiar feel of a place
And yet stares me ‘new and ‘different’
The Indian look and the Maharashtrian
Evinces an ‘ignoring’ of a missing India
The dominant culture and its construct
Pops out from the sidelines and margins
Do reveal something hidden, veiled
Purposely made to remain so.
Is it only a lopsided vision?
A perception that stares
because of the return from foreign shores
There seems to be a collusion
And subtly letting it be
For the retention of privilege
As not everyone’s cup of tea.
Why upset the apple cart and just let it be
Why feel the way you do – awakening incongruities
The right for all to be in the limelight
Ways of recreating the alterity of being
Indian and not being anti-western.
Indian secularism and the doors it opened
Can they remain so in turbulent times
Of new eliminations, new captivities
What does it mean to live for a cause
Away from India and yet for something there.