Poetry

Do not project your fear

onto my body

I will not hold your hand

and reassure you

I have no intention of killing you

I will not coddle your

fear or accept guilt

by association

I have no interest in

reassuring you

not all of us are like that

I will not apologize

for your parochialism

your provincialism

or your ignorance

for your inability to

perceive

violence unless

a tv box or a hashtag

numbs your mind with it
I will not mourn with you

because you don’t even

know

how to acknowledge

my many deaths

I will not affirm

that your grief

and your loss

is more painful

or more significant

or more terrifying

than the grievances you

have never even heard of

than the grievances you refuse

to recognize as grievances

I will tell you instead

what it feels like

to watch your

Pundits and your Experts

extoll the virtues of

Killing All Muslims

of deporting everyone on

security lists with names

like mine

I will tell you

how much terror

your vaunted fear

births

how it pierces my skin

coils around my cranium

burrows under my parietal

bones makes it difficult

to breathe

to think

to wake up

in the morning

how it grows inside me

this infinite terror

because you think

your fear is

so special

so singular

so unique

it justifies the

rivers of blood

in places

you still don’t know

how to find on a map

I will not apologize

until every single european

apologizes for the massacres

holocausts genocides famines

committed in your names

until you personally apologize

for palestine kashmir algeria the

congo

for drawing lines

in the sand

that still fester

like bloody wounds

will refuse to apologize

until every single american

personally apologizes for discovering

this continent

by washing it in the

blood

of it’s original inhabitants

for slavery the kkk

plantations japanese internment

camps the trail of tears

for the burnings

hangings lynchings

of Black bodies

for policemen

who still don’t know

innocence and Blackness

can exist

in the same body

for rectal feedings and

unaccountable disappearances

abu ghraib and fallujah

for torture that still doesn’t

count

as torture for terror that rises and

rises and rises

infinitely
I will not apologize

because nothing I can say

will ever suffice for you

because you have already

proven your inability

to hear my many

apologies

because even

my 1,600,000,000 deaths

won’t quench your fear

I’m a bad Muslim

and I will never again

apologize

for the bitter taste of

your fear in my mouth

Asam Ahmad is a writer who still has a hard time trusting words. He coordinates the It Gets Fatter project and lives in Toronto. He is a contributor to Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence.

Despite repeated demands to name a road or an auditorium after the famed poet, the municipal corporation has not responded and Agra University has turned down a demand to set up a Ghalib chair to promote research and work in Urdu literature

Agra: Mirza Ghalib, whose contribution to Urdu literature was perhaps as significant as that of Shakespeare to English, was born here on this day over 200 years ago. The Taj city Saturday not only forgot to celebrate his birthday but also does not have a decent memorial to the poet, activists said.

Syed Jaffrey, director of the Mirza Ghalib Academy, wants better facilities and support from the government to promote research in Urdu literature.

“Agra, which has given so much to the Urdu culture, should have a decent memorial for the poet. The municipal corporation has proposals pending to name a street after the poet but there has been no follow-up,” he said Saturday.

The haveli in Kala Mahal area where Mirza Asad Ullah Khan ‘Ghalib’ was born in 1796 is now a girls’ inter-college. The mansion has no memorial to the poet.

The Uttar Pradesh tourism department had at one time planned to take over the haveli and convert it into a memorial, but the plan was shelved for some reason.

Ghalib moved to Delhi where his poetic talent blossomed and found new expression at a time when Bahadur Shah Zafar was the Mughal emperor.

Sandeep Arora, a member of the city’s hotel and restaurant association, said when foreign tourists ask to be taken to Ghalib’s birthplace, Agra citizens feel “very embarrassed”.

“The central and state governments should jointly build a fitting memorial and a library in Agra for Urdu poetry lovers,” he said.

Surendra Sharma of the Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society said Ghalib’s house “should be converted into a national memorial” for the poet “whose contribution to Urdu literature has been as significant as that of Shakespeare to English literature”.

(IANS)

Bad Muslim: A Poem

Ghalib's Agra forgets him on birthday

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