To Leena Manimekalai

In a very holy land
In a very pious place
One hundred thirty crore people live
Sensitive, religious, courageous and non-sensuous.

We get hurt
And rightly so
When a polymorph smokes
And a strange man named Zubair
Says the truth

We are very decent people
We kiss in private
We kill in public.
We worship our goddesses.
We are fine with female infanticide

We are very tolerant
No one ever has been lynched here
for their names!
We are champions of freedom of speech!

We never celebrate violence.
Three days of peace conclave happened
In Haridwar
Under the holy presence of some
Holy men
No one has called for genocide there.

We, one hundred and thirty crore people
are very soft-hearted,
You must agree, Leena!
We boo our girls for being a lesbian
and we are the highest dowry payer!

This is the story of a noble country
You must understand, Leena!
How dare you, Leena!
How can your goddess work in a pride march!

About the poem: This poem is in solidarity with Leena Manimekalai who is getting a lot of flak for the poster of her movie.

Moumita Alam is a poet from West Bengal. Her poetry collection The Musings of the Dark is available on Amazon