Let bad banished be by better
Books banned scarce banished stay, nor burnt to naught,
Thoughts nor ideas stay captured to a jail,
Nor art if censored stay for long unsought,
As all inquests condemned are to derail;
Societies if they be left free to fail,
At times tense in dissent and friction-prone,
Like a turbulent ocean caught on gale,
Be proof: freedom breathes big on its own.
No art obscene is, book, nor painting drawn,
For all obscenity, as beauty, lies
In beholder's eyes that see what's ere sown,
As most minds scarce from their base level rise.
Hard by far a better bailiff to see
To bad idea than one that better be.
__________________________________________ _______________
Much of the intolerance seen in the Indian society today, it seems,
is stage-managed and promoted by party politics with a view to
win votes. Take the recent ban on Salman Rushdie on attending a
Lit Fest in Jaipur. Take the court cases on the well-known painter
M F Hussain, who had to stay away from his country of birth till
he died in London a few months back; take Taslima Nasreen of
Bangladesh being driven out of West Bengal; take banning of
books, paintings, and movies, even historical essays. But have
they remained banned? What is banned seldom becomes banal.
It becomes for sure better known, if not a best seller.
The way out is indicated in the couplet concluding this Sonnet.
______________________________________ ___________________________
- Sonnets | 08.01.12 |
poem by Aniruddha Pathak
Added by Poetry Lover
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