"The history of firearms in India";
"Single biggest cause" for use of guns
ascribed to "mass production" and "easy availability";
memories from Kolkata Police Museum.
Files on Subhash Bose's 'terror' activities,
on Communists in the British colonies.
Samuel Colt, Mikhail Kalashnikov - their blown-up images.
I played a game called Zarya 1 -
means Dawn One in Ruskie tongue.
Eighteen thousand Adelie baby-penguins
starved to death, the papers
are a source of misery, not information.
It is Diwali. My dog's restlessness reminds me
to keep her safe from harm. In this country
we do not die as much from guns.
We smother our children with celebration;
festivals that make captive imaginations.
Tiny fingers itching to burst
what other tiny fingers have made.
You accuse me of negativity. I plead guilty.
My dark cynicism pollutes minds,
as do festivities. You seem to justify
hope and change. The first black president
was followed by a whiteness that did not
illuminate. A festival that looked like
a gun-barrel - pointed at
penguins and children.
"And the trees are stripped bare/ of all they wear/ What do I care" - Paul David Hewson
