nepal - a poem 'Comrade'

 Dil Sahni, is a renowned writer, professor, and Maoist sympathizer in Nepal. He works as the coordinator of the M.A. English Department at Butwal Multiple Campus, Nepal. 
This poem was first published by Winter Has Its End, which is offering a series of poems by revolutionaries in Nepal.


Comrade

by Dil Sahni

 

Comrade!
When you were in the street
You spoke revolution

Comrade!
When you were in the slums
You spoke liberation

Comrade!
When you were with the people
Like the fish in the water
You spoke Marxism
You spoke Leninism
You spoke Maoism
You spoke so much
Socialism and Communism
And what not

But now Comrade!
When you are in the chair
You do not hear
What the street would say to you

But now Comrade
When you are in your heavenly kingdom
You do not visit the slums
Even just to confirm
Whether they are happily dead
Or still alive

But now Comrade!
When you are in the palace
You do not face the people
even just to ascertain
What complaints they would make

 

Frankly speaking
If you don’t mind
What you were in the past Comrade
You are not in the present
You are wonderfully changed
When nothing is changed
with your kind permission
May I ask you the crux of the question

 

O Comrade!
Are you still a Comrade
Or everything
Except a Comrade.