Translated from the Hindi by Aparna Mahiyaria
We are grieving.
They have gathered pen and paper
and have set out to write
the tale of our grief.
Characters have been concocted,
plots have been woven,
the project is sold!
The opening frame is decided:
a fictionalised account
“based on true events.”
We’d be grieving
and they will make a film about it.
A film in which we will not be
the storytellers,
the directors,
the actors,
the camerapersons,
we will not be the musicians,
nor even spot operators or extras
(or perhaps we will get to be
spot operators or extras).
This film will win
National Awards,
Filmfare trophies,
a tour of Europe,
an Oscar nomination,
be a box-office success.
That is to say—
glittering fame,
clinking riches!
We’d be grieving
and, in our grief,
might make a paltry post in protest on Facebook:
our grief was not
for you to mine for your art,
where having rendered us unlicensed,
you extracted the gold
to fashion your jewels.
We’d be grieving and
will be assigned the blame for it too:
that we are frenzied extremists,
plagued by a victim mentality,
filled with bitterness, rage, resentment.
Someone will declare, in an instant
that we could achieve nothing for ourselves,
yet we reproach those who
are trying to do good.
Someone will declare, to placate,
that when it comes to a story
all its tellers have an equal claim.
We’d be grieving when
we will lose the debate again,
we will fail to make anyone see
that we were enduring grief.
our bodies, our senses,
our resolve, our energy,
our minds, our souls,
were soaked in agony.
that we were being drowned
our necks clutched tight,
in the waters of pain,
relentlessly,
we were flailing for breath,
that it was impossible at the time
to remember pen or paper,
that there was no ease
with which we could
detach ourselves from our story.
We will lose the debate again.
when our resistance will be recorded in history
as an objection, an exception,
a mere excuse for the fact that
we kept grieving
and failed again to write
the story of our grief,
in our own voice.
Hussain Haidry is a poet, a lyricist, and a screenwriter born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. He came into prominence as a poet for his anti-CAA poems during the protests in 2019-2020. The poem published here was written in 2020 in the context of films appropriating and getting accolades through the stories and lives of the marginalised. As a lyricist, Haidry has written for the films Qarib Qarib Single, Mukkabaaz, Taish, Kadak, Sherni, Dobaara. He has co-written the Amazon web series, Laakhon Mein Ek, and a Netflix short film, titled Madhyaantar, and dialogue for the web series Bandish Bandits and Daldal.
Aparna Mahiyaria is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer and academic. In the past, she has worked as an editor at the Indian Cultural Forum where she produced a poetry series ‘Bol.’ She has translated works of eminent poets including Savita Singh, Manglesh Dabral, and Surinder Jaipal. She currently works as a lecturer in drama at the University of Exeter. Her research examines the relationship between performance and politics in the context of street theatre in Delhi, and more recently, theatre’s encounters with law. She lives and works in Exeter, UK.