The Ray

The Ray

Have you seen the sun?
Absurd-what am I asking!
You see it every day-
you do see it, don’t you?
No… you don’t.
At dawn, or in the soft afternoon
when it has no heat,
perhaps then you can bear to look.
But never at the noon-day sun-
instead you hide yourself from its fire,
isn’t that so?

I can stare
into the fierce noon sun
for endless hours.
Perhaps it’s genetic-

For the crime of sheltering freedom fighters,
you dragged my father away.
Eight long months-missing.
Dead or alive-we did not know.
Again and again, moment after moment,
my mother’s and grandmother’s hearts split open in cries,
each second of waiting unbearable.
Sleepless, half-fed, often unfed,
a subhuman life in dark cells-
forgetting the very meaning of life and death,
groping with mute eyes for a fistful of light.
And my father-
in your secret torture camps,
poised on the threshold of life and death,
calm, frozen, an unyielding being.
Thinking of the beloved faces of his dear home,
he somehow dragged life forward.

Unspeakable tortures- beyond language-
you shattered him with them.
Not an inch of his body remained
where the barbaric Pak (yes, impure) “artists”
and their accomplices-you-
had not left a stroke
of your life-destroying “brush.”

Hour after hour
you forced him to stand in ice-cold water;
drum after drum of boiling water
you poured to scorch his body;
burning cigarettes across both arms,
pins driven into every nail,
routine electric shocks three times a day,
fed him filth-excrement, urine, garbage-
what did you not make him swallow?
Seven straight nights you denied him sleep,
keeping thousand-watt bulbs blazing before his eyes.
My father did not speak.
Perhaps he pushed that unbearable light
to the very limits of endurance-
not a trace of damage touched his sight!
You were defeated by my father’s resolve,
defeated by the unbreakable patriotism
of the proud Bengali soul.

My crippled father can still endure intense light.
So can I.
I can stare for hours
into the blazing noon sun.
You are afraid!
I know-sheer terror is crushing
the senses of every Pak (impure) co-artist-

Creatures of darkness fear the light;
their crimes thrive in shadow.
I am a worshipper of light, I love light-
this is the time of light.

The young are all travelers of light,
advancing on illuminated paths day and night!
Everywhere the anthem of light resounds-
Prepare to be scorched, O demon!

Prodyot