Questions of Identity

Questions of identity

that seem to boggle me now;

Can I seek my own answers

or should I just accept the ones given by thou?

As a child, I was told

about how things are,

with the remark of a teacher,

You won’t be able to go too far.

Because I learnt a language that she did not like;

maybe, I should have learnt Sanskrit to get it right.

When I joined college, I was considered a bad company.

By a teacher who did not believe in the term religion

I was still asked if I had a terrorist vision.

I wondered as a student about how I was a terror?

I guess, my name was enough of an error.

A few years later, I was called a murderer

For eating what I eat,

You know that one thing called ‘meat’.

How heartless of you, they said

while having a chicken wing with a dole of bread.

With all that I have been through in my life

I do not dare to ask these questions anymore;

for I know who I am,

nothing more than a caste, a religion or a name.