The Barbarians

We were certain they would come.

We broke the idols of those who

might have stood against them, one by one.

We waited in the capital to welcome them

with goblets brimming with children’s blood.

We removed our clothes to put on barks

set fire to monuments,

propitiated fire for the sacrifices to come ,

changed the names of the royal streets.

Afraid our libraries might provoke them

we razed them to the ground, letting

only the palm leaves inscribed with the mantras

of black magic to survive.

But we did not even know when they came.

For, they had come up, holding aloft

our own idols, saluting our flag,

dressed like we used to be,

carrying our law-books, chanting our slogans,

speaking our tongue, piously touching

the stone-steps of the royal assembly.

Only when they began to poison our wells,

rob our kids of their food and

shoot people down accusing them of thinking

did we realise they had ever been

amidst us, within us. Now we

look askance at one another and wonder,

‘Are you the barbarian? Are you?’

No answer. We only see the fire spreading

filling our future with smoke and our

language turning into that of death.

Now we wait for our saviour at the city square,

as if it were someone else.

[Remembering C.P. Cavafy’s famous poem, ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’.]

(K. Satchidanandan, poet, art critic, essayist and public intellectual, writes in both English and Malayalam. Courtesy: The Beacon. The Beacon is a web-based only feature magazine of writing and reading (long-form essays, fiction and poetry) that believes in confluences more than in consensus.)

Janata Weekly does not necessarily adhere to all of the views conveyed in articles republished by it. Our goal is to share a variety of democratic socialist perspectives that we think our readers will find interesting or useful. —Eds.

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