The Chronicle of Darkness

Lo, darkness was, is, and ever shall abide.
 
When Tamerlane and his hosts did raid this land,
the maidens were borne away like spoils of war.
Yet still mine own dreams climb the stair unseen,
buying fair morns with the coin of a pawned past.
Battles we bury, safely forgot;
for Bābar’s swords did towns efface entire,
and Darius, crimson upon his path,
strode unto Greece with bloodied hand and brow.
Yet were these ways not noble,
though the chronicler—one-eyed and crooked—
did name them hero’s tale.
Darkness was, is, and shall remain.
 
In solitude seek I a dawn anew,
gazing upon wounds that glisten as bright coins.
In Avanti’s dust-bound halls where love lay slain,
there lingereth Ajivika Makkhali’s corpse.
In brazen age, upon the beaten road,
the Brahmins walk, their path cleansed by pitcher’s pour,
whilst shudras, nameless, scourged on buffalo’s back,
bear welts of lash, chained in kshatriya law.
Yet Ajivika Makkhali rose in defiance,
rebellion carved upon his dust-worn flesh.
O fate-driven lot of mortal men—
darkness was, is, and shall endure.
 
Upon the march of time came sages bright,
gentle of heart, steadfast of spirit,
who set the mind aflame with light.
But kings, in greed, devoured all,
veiling their tyranny with art’s sweet bloom—
Birbal and Tansen wove their laurels,
while Megasthenes sang our sorrow’s lay.
In Alexander’s envoy’s pen we read
our tale—though in defeat disfigured.
Thus, nature bears witness:
darkness was, is, and shall not flee.
 
And fate, as master, ruleth yet:
till age, till grief, till sickness conquer flesh,
we roll imagination in the dust,
adorning it with false and truthful tales alike.
Within me, Purū’s sepulchre is hollow,
yet consciousness sitteth beside the dead.
Even the corpse retains a ghostly soul—
see Akbarnama, and Rajput queens enslaved.
Lo, roaring darkness turneth inward,
crafting mighty kings in guise of sages,
while memories flee like spectres in the night.
Darkness was, is, and shall forever reign.
 
And in this luckless land,
where frauds in holy garments cross o’er seas,
our justice, our faith, our scriptures bold—
Veda, Purāna, Upanishad, Charvaka’s verse—
were drowned, replaced by Albion’s torch:
education, renaissance, the gift of empire.
Rammohan, Tagore, and Gandhi rose;
freedom, a Western trinket bestowed,
yet under it, unbroken rule endured.
There is no higher truth!
Forgotten revolutionaries, slain by bullets,
their epitaphs writ by clerkish hands,
while election’s cry drowns out their names.
Darkness was, is, and shall remain.
 
Perchance, one day anon,
shall history script the tale of some cannibal king.
A mausoleum, immortal, be raised in his name—
a Taj Mahal!
But his lust, his harem, his chains of slaves,
be varnished as love’s eternal palace.
Thus doth history deceive,
turning outrage into heritage,
and tyranny into splendour.
Through ages, readers shall bow to empire,
learning naught of common men ground beneath
ashvamedha steeds.
For who hath recorded their cries
in the royal archives?
Yet all know this:
there is no other path.
Men worship, erecting citadels of sin,
while commerce of the past endureth.
Darkness was, is, and ever shall be.