Dantewada Days

i've been reading the papers, full of the recent maoist attack that killed 72 soldiers...everyone has been relentlessly condemning them, but no one is wondering why the locals are getting sucked into this affair...i looked up dantewada and found it be desolate place, with a sad present and a bleak future...Salwa Judum is an anti-naxal militia group indirectly funded by the indian government, who altho stand for democracy and freedom, cannot tell their bullets to hit the right targets. 350 ppl have lost their lives and 50,000 their homes in the last 5 years to the cross-fire between these two groups...i find the whole exercise pointless, and have sorta taken it out in the poem...btw, 'crimson' in the 2nd line, is a dual reference to blood, and the land the maoists control :)...sorry, couldn't help but show-off :P..

Here I stand, a blunt axe in my hand,

The toys of the sons of this crimson land.

A life of violence, revenge and sorrow,

Its only in the books that we read of a tomorrow.

Not left not center, yet I was caught in between,

In the line of fire, no distinctions are seen.

I knew not the ideals on which they depend,

Just that when they came, I lay down and did pretend.

We were told the government's men had come,

Instead my mother and sister were shot by Salwa Judum.

Then came the maoists, saying it was only fair,

That if they take my kin, then I take theirs.

So I took the AK-56, and was in red thought clad,

Despite knowing that the maoists were just as bad.

I cared not that these people were a threat to democracy,

Wanted to put lead into those who took mom away from me.

I've read the papers singing Salwa Judum's praise,

By people who have seen none of Dantewada's days.

The upholders of democracy, they're called in this war,

But if it was their battle, what did we suffer for?

Then one fine day we prevailed, our plan came true,

I got my revenge, but took a couple of slugs too.

The government condemned us, a minister took the blame,

Countless like me lost to a pointless war, to them its just the same.