A TRIBUTE

Sadaat Hasan Manto, one of the most prolific short-story writers to emerge from the subcontinent, described the murder of a 'Muslim bastard' during the riots in his most famous short story 'Toba Tek Singh'.  He concludes that the murderer had killed only a human being and the murder had neither killed the 'bastard in him' nor his 'Muslimness'.  Taking a cue from this, I say this to the killers of freethinkers: You neither kill their skepticism nor their knowledge-based pursuits; you just kill human beings. Enlightened people will still seek knowledge, will still show skepticism, will still question many beliefs accepted in society. They will never come out with meat cleavers to hack people who hold a contrary position, because true knowledge does not teach anyone to become unduly defensive about their belief and counter their stance with violently offensive actions. 

In a perfect world
The eagle will fly with the dove,
John Lennon would be an old man in his seventies;
Grey hair, round lenses settled on the bridge of his nose
Living and not dreaming of the words of 'Imagine'.

In a perfect world
People will learn to live in harmony,
Race will have no role to play.
Men will look at others with colour-blind eyes.
The colour of earth will become the colour of skin.
No high brows, no untouchables,
All standing on the same line for a bus ticket to a happy place.

In a perfect world
My neighbour will argue with me
But he will keep his arguments civil;
Our swords will only fill our scabbards.
Dissent will be a right for all,
Doubt and contradiction will be wisdom,
Self-righteousness will be abhorred.
A tongue lashing will be the height of anger.
But at the end of the day the adversaries
Will share a plate of biriyani while sharing happy memories.

In a perfect world
Well…
Who am I kidding?
Nobody wants perfection!
Of all the perfect stamps minted
We look for the one with a printing mistake.
We thrive on imperfection
'Cause imperfection is we.
Maybe that was the grand design;
A fixed game is a boring game.