चित्र : शेफाली जैन
अनुवाद: अनुराधा अनन्या
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What?
You don’t feel at home in your country,
almost overnight?
All the simple things
you cared about,
maybe took for granted. . .
you feel
insulted, invisible?
Almost as if you’re not there?
But you’re there.
Where before you mingled freely. . .
appreciated people who weren’t
just like you. . .
divisions grow stronger.
That’s what “chosen” and “unchosen” will do.
(Just keep your eyes on your houses and gardens.
Keep your eyes on that tree in bloom.)
Yes, a wall. Ours came later but. . .
who talks about how sad the land looks,
marked by a massive wall?
That’s not a normal shadow.
It’s something else looming over your lives.
A Palestinian Might Say by Naomi Shihab Nye
©2020 Shefalee Jain
Ek Philistini Shayad Kahe by Shefalee Jain
BlueJackal Publication May 2020.
This was first published in print in Drawing Resistance Feb. 2020. Drawing Resistance is a collaborative crowdfunded booklet put together by artists and writers Shefalee Jain, Shivangi Singh, Lokesh Khodke and Vidyun Sabhaney. The booklet was brought out in response to and in support of the nationwide protests in India against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR). It was distributed free of cost at protest sites and also circulated as a PDF.
To see PDF of Drawing Resistance Feb 2020 click here.