History of Betrayal
Far away—some
radiant city of beauty,
its streets made of illusion—
I walk there, into a past imagined,
dark, uncertain.
They say the old days were good,
but those days bled with restless questions,
with accusations that still follow us like shadows.
The historian must answer:
why fashion the past from fantasy?
Megasthenes, Abul Fazl, Goebbels—
scribes of empire, courtiers of power.
We studied their words,
believed their pages of glory,
yet who will answer for the dried blood
at the corner of the book’s cover?
Ancient memories are not gone—
they still bind the future with the tightened rope of waves.
I walk again into that familiar Bengal,
famine’s claw in 1943,
while Gandhi’s men sang freedom songs,
and the poor farmer’s rice
fed the barracks instead of his children.
No salt, no grain,
only corpses that never became martyrs,
only hollow stomachs that never earned statues.
And their children, still alive today,
place garlands on portraits,
speak proudly of Father of Nation,
parrot the speeches about Allies and Fascists,
Hitler the devil, Churchill the angel—
while hunger devoured millions,
and nonviolence became the only religion allowed.
This history—
a history of lies,
a history of betrayals,
a history of hunger and exploitation.
I walk through centuries of poverty and dust,
through rivers of blood—
the Tigris in jihadist slaughter,
the frozen fields of Daldaikan in Russia,
through every corner where death fed life,
where forefathers feasted on each other’s corpses.
My roots grew in this famine-land,
in sweat, in blood,
in endless labor,
and still I am asked for peace,
still my restless spirit is denied rest.
I walk back further—
to Kalinga, battlefield of the dead.
Ashoka sits with hand on cheek,
contemplating his beloved carnage,
a sea of corpses around him,
rivers of blood flowing—
and history calls it wisdom.
Tell me, historian—
why write the past from imagination?
Why glorify the conqueror?
Why silence the raped woman,
the starving child,
the faceless millions crushed beneath boots?
The noise of triumph echoes,
filling horizons with the lie of greatness.
What truth remains?
That Selucus wondered,
“What a strange land is this!”—
beneath the joy of conquest.
Nadir Shah, Timur, Alexander—
their paths piled high with corpses,
women, children, the old—
and the yajnas of kings,
sacrifices written as heroism.
Epic poems, holy texts,
songs for victors,
never for the enslaved.
Muhammad, Christ, Mahavira, Buddha—
they too were written into narrow gardens,
tidy mythologies.
Was Nietzsche right?
Turin, 1889,
the weak crushed beneath the strong—
and Nietzsche fell, crying:
“God is dead.”
Civilization without God,
without morality,
only oppression eternal,
the law of the powerful forever.
And the common man walks, bowed,
the peasant dragged by rope
for unpaid taxes,
wife and child trailing behind.
Such was Mughal justice,
yet court historians wrote only
of Akbar’s tolerance,
of Tansen’s music,
of Birbal’s wit—
never of the tortured concubines
in Agra’s fort,
never of the girls sold as slaves.
Empire upon empire,
civilization upon civilization,
thousand-year lies,
thousand-year betrayals—
and the historians polished them all.
Now it is for us to strip away the illusion,
to wash the blood from the pages,
to write the truth not of the kings
but of the people.
A history of poverty,
a history of betrayal,
a history of hunger and pain,
yes—
but also a history still unwritten:
the eternal truth of man,
awaiting its voice.
its streets made of illusion—
I walk there, into a past imagined,
dark, uncertain.
They say the old days were good,
but those days bled with restless questions,
with accusations that still follow us like shadows.
The historian must answer:
why fashion the past from fantasy?
Megasthenes, Abul Fazl, Goebbels—
scribes of empire, courtiers of power.
We studied their words,
believed their pages of glory,
yet who will answer for the dried blood
at the corner of the book’s cover?
Ancient memories are not gone—
they still bind the future with the tightened rope of waves.
I walk again into that familiar Bengal,
famine’s claw in 1943,
while Gandhi’s men sang freedom songs,
and the poor farmer’s rice
fed the barracks instead of his children.
No salt, no grain,
only corpses that never became martyrs,
only hollow stomachs that never earned statues.
And their children, still alive today,
place garlands on portraits,
speak proudly of Father of Nation,
parrot the speeches about Allies and Fascists,
Hitler the devil, Churchill the angel—
while hunger devoured millions,
and nonviolence became the only religion allowed.
This history—
a history of lies,
a history of betrayals,
a history of hunger and exploitation.
I walk through centuries of poverty and dust,
through rivers of blood—
the Tigris in jihadist slaughter,
the frozen fields of Daldaikan in Russia,
through every corner where death fed life,
where forefathers feasted on each other’s corpses.
My roots grew in this famine-land,
in sweat, in blood,
in endless labor,
and still I am asked for peace,
still my restless spirit is denied rest.
I walk back further—
to Kalinga, battlefield of the dead.
Ashoka sits with hand on cheek,
contemplating his beloved carnage,
a sea of corpses around him,
rivers of blood flowing—
and history calls it wisdom.
Tell me, historian—
why write the past from imagination?
Why glorify the conqueror?
Why silence the raped woman,
the starving child,
the faceless millions crushed beneath boots?
The noise of triumph echoes,
filling horizons with the lie of greatness.
What truth remains?
That Selucus wondered,
“What a strange land is this!”—
beneath the joy of conquest.
Nadir Shah, Timur, Alexander—
their paths piled high with corpses,
women, children, the old—
and the yajnas of kings,
sacrifices written as heroism.
Epic poems, holy texts,
songs for victors,
never for the enslaved.
Muhammad, Christ, Mahavira, Buddha—
they too were written into narrow gardens,
tidy mythologies.
Was Nietzsche right?
Turin, 1889,
the weak crushed beneath the strong—
and Nietzsche fell, crying:
“God is dead.”
Civilization without God,
without morality,
only oppression eternal,
the law of the powerful forever.
And the common man walks, bowed,
the peasant dragged by rope
for unpaid taxes,
wife and child trailing behind.
Such was Mughal justice,
yet court historians wrote only
of Akbar’s tolerance,
of Tansen’s music,
of Birbal’s wit—
never of the tortured concubines
in Agra’s fort,
never of the girls sold as slaves.
Empire upon empire,
civilization upon civilization,
thousand-year lies,
thousand-year betrayals—
and the historians polished them all.
Now it is for us to strip away the illusion,
to wash the blood from the pages,
to write the truth not of the kings
but of the people.
A history of poverty,
a history of betrayal,
a history of hunger and pain,
yes—
but also a history still unwritten:
the eternal truth of man,
awaiting its voice.
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