Rallying Cry

they ask me where i am from / and i do not know how to answer / because how do i tell them the story of my truths / when the all the sentences attached to them / have been conveniently buried / before they could reach the mouths of those we cherish before they could trickle down our senses / fall between our lips / find a home within our tongues / settle into our taste buds / so we could breathe them into new lives

in 1947 one of the world’s largest mass migrations occurred / the colonial British began dismantling / their carefully curated empire in South Asia / splitting a nation enriched by a myriad of cultures languages and religions into two / carving borders / where there were none / fourteen million people were displaced / acts of mass violence took place / where once people lived in harmony / now there was rage

my ancestors came from a province called Sindh you see / back then it was a part of all of India / now it is only in Pakistan / and i say i am Indian / but i am no more Indian than i am Pakistani

they ask me where i am from / and i still do not know how to answer

i am from the ridges between mountains that don’t fit / the in betweens of catastrophes / the stories lying underneath sand that dwindled / between breaking oceans / i am from the suitcases that were lost in silence / the blood between soil / found in fruits that grew / despite the fires that brewed / i am from the photographs that burned / through golden frames carefully kept / cautiously tucked aside / buried with seeds from mango trees that once grew /  i am from the undivided land / my ancestors regrets

they ask me where i am from / and i still do not know how to answer

they ask me again / like there is no knowledge of the fact that the lines that were carved displaced millions of their homes / and the lines since then have only grown

they ask not because they want to understand / but because they need to justify their actions for the word no

The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 The Immigration Act 1971 The British Nationality Act 1981 The Immigration Act 1986 The Immigration Act 1988 The British Nationality Act 1990 The Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 The Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997 The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 The Asylum and Immigration Act 2004 The Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 The Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 The Immigration Act 2014 The Immigration Act 2016

they expect us to then / piece the puzzles of the histories they’ve carefully curated / without ever acknowledging the lack of it in their textbooks

Who is Queen Elizabeth 2 married to? What is the capital of England? How many women were victims of sexual assault during the partition of India? Which flag has a white cross on a blue background? What was the population of the UK in 1901? How many people were displaced during the partition of India? What is the monarch’s ceremonial role? How old is the Big Ben? How many families had to break during the partition of India?

you see each of the acts have caused more borders / and the borders have only caused more barriers / and the barriers more hostility

and now we have people in uniforms screaming the words no / but its often already known that’s the answer / because the media swims under headlines normalising hate

humans are labelled ‘swarms’ / ‘cockroaches’ / and ‘illegal’

so they sit there in their uniforms / once again puppets of an empire that has not stopped / politely saying in their ‘british’ ways

I know you want to step in but I am here to tell you You are not allowed

You cannot step into this border With your filthy hands dipped in chicken curry Cut in your motherland Because we don’t eat like that here We knife our roasted meat with pride and have pints with salted chips for dinner

I know you want to step in but I am here to tell you that You are not allowed

Your sarees and burqas don’t fit into our wardrobes Because we don’t dress like that here We drape ourselves in the Union Jack Built on the backs of half of this world’s people

I know you want to come in But I am here to tell you You are not allowed

Your bindis and mehendi Are too customary Because we are so unorthodox here We go to festivals and relish in accesoring our bodies With everything you Hindus hold dear

I know you want to come in But I am here to tell you You are not allowed

Your languages don’t roll of our tongues easily Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi doesn’t fit in our dictionaries We expect you to learn our phonetics Because your accent just sounds lame

I know you want to come in But I am here to tell you You are not allowed