Tipton Poetry Journal
Thirst Prerna Bakshi My Uncle tells me when the calls for Partition filled the anxious air, everything was up for partition, not just the land. Nothing remained outside its purview. Everything was to be partitioned. Including water. On a railways platform, shouts of Hindu water, Muslim water could be heard as fleeing refugees searched through their ragged pockets to fish out a few coins in exchange for water. The journey was long. Not everyone made it to the other side alive. Those who did had their thirst quenched but what about the water? What quenched its thirst? If water could speak, it would confess its thirst. Its thirst for peace. Thirst for sanity. Thirst for to leave it the fuck alone. [This poem was previously published in Sick Lit Magazine] Author’s note: When the calls for Partition echoed, both my maternal and paternal grandparents and their families, had to flee Pakistan. The poem is a meditation on the chaos and political climate that existed at that time.
Prerna Bakshi is a writer, poet and interpreter of Indian origin currently based in Macao. Her poetry has been published in Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Indiana Voice Journal, Red Fez, Muse India, Postcolonial Text, Hysteria, Grey Sparrow Journal, and others.
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