With empty stomachs and tattered clothes
With lifeless eyes devoid of all hopes
With dreams not daring to knock at your hearts
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When the ‘accident of your birth’ decides your fate
And even for that the fault is laid down at your gate
When people look at you but do-not acknowledge your existence
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When day after day you slog in the fields and the farms
When you raise your crops like your children, don’t let them come any harm
And the fruits of all these efforts you are not allowed to reap
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When all that you desire at the end of the day
Is only a morsel of food in your child’s stomach and they say
“First tell us which caste you belong to?”
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When you work in the gutters, clean the sewers and lift others’ dirt on your bare heads
And you are told it’s your fate and you don’t even need any special so that you don’t end up dead
And then when you are made to sit on thrones and your feet washed by the most powerful
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When you fill the roadsides spreading your humble collections
In the hope that someone may choose to buy something after all the bargainings and selections
When your humble collections are then confiscated and hefty bribes you are forced to pay
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When you have burnt the midnight oil for years
And think that you are now ready to outshine all your peers
When you are then told that there are no vacancies that may see the light of the day
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When after years of toiling hard and being loyal to your employer
One fine day you are told that you are no longer required
When your children and your family then look at you for answers
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When you are told that learning is synonymous with listening and complying
And if you open your mouth to question you are actually trying
To malign your nation, your elders, even God, and so you are nothing but monsters
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When you are told that since you happen to belong to the wrong religion
You are lesser of a citizen in your own nation
You can stay here but only at someone else’s terms
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When you are told that since you happen to belong to the wrong gender
You are lesser of a mortal unequal in every term
So in the journey of life don’t try to be anything more than a bystander
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When you are told that since you are just an ordinary individual
Fooling you around is so simple that it shall become a daily fixture
When your mind, your dignity, your very existence is thus daily questioned
Is hatred the lifeline you are really looking for?
When the above scenarios confront you
And calls for hatred tempt you
Even then stay strong and don’t give in
For the path of hatred shall only further ruin you
It won’t give you food, neither shelter, nor clothing
Nor will it be able to give you a means of earning
It will not provide you with a different caste, or religion, or gender
What it will do is just lead you to meander
Through twists and turns and deceptions and then more lies
To keep alive that hatred because if it dies
You just may realize that it was all for nothing
Coz nothing changed for the better, all the issues in your life were still alive and burning
And the day you realize this may be the end of the road for all those
Who, in their hubris, forgot that you might just choose
Love and care and reason and empathy
And reject all the lies and the hatred and the values they chose to fancy
The day you make them reach this dead end
They shall be forced to take a bend
Towards the values that unite and keep alive
And who knows the human civilization may then just survive
The road may be long, the path difficult
Yet, do you really have a choice? This question is only for you to answer
Nivedita Dwivedi is a writer from Mumbai
