by Bakul Banerjee
Long ago, a man in his peasant’s garb
took to the street of Sabarmati to march
to the Dandi beach, never looking back.
His countrymen watched him emerge
like the heavy rain cooling a hot tin roof,
and rejoiced seeing his peasant’s garb.
The new British “Salt Tax” was the proof
of oppression. It was time for India to surge
to the Dandi beach, never looking back.
Doubts of peers Gandhi had to disprove.
Like Monsoon, men came forming a deluge,
making salt with the man in a peasant’s garb.
Neither destiny nor the destination, they knew.
Freedom, the only goal, they wished to achieve.
They marched to the sea, never looking back.
Furrowed fields lay fallow. Men were gone
to face muskets. With children, women sang
lining roadsides in their peasants’ garb,
“Quit India! British regime, go back.”
Award winning author and poet Bakul Banerjee, Ph.D. published her first volume of poems, titled “Synchronicity: Poems” in 2010. For the past fifteen years, her poems and stories appeared in several literary magazines and anthologies throughout U.S. and India. She lives near Chicago and received her Ph.D. degree in computational geophysics from The Johns Hopkins University, Maryland.
Pic: wikimedia commons
