That crazy lady in the museum

ना चुलू भर पानी मिलेगा

ना रत्ती भर जगह

तूँ तो  शर्म से अपनी

भस्म भी ना हो पायेगा  

This, is Josef Koudelka standing in front of one his marvelous portraits of history. When Czechoslovakia was invaded, he photographed it and eventually smuggled them out for the world to face the barbarity he'd witnessed. 

I had a chance to visit a few of his works at the Getty in LA and for three hours I stared, cried and wrote. Most people, and there were quite a lot, took about 15 mins at most to view the gallery and move on. So when I spent 15 mins just at the entrance and stood there scribbling away in my dairy, people looked at me strangely. Their look said a lot without them having to say a thing. These looks ranged form, what a crazy lady to must be an art student. 

Some looked over my shoulder to see what was it I was writing, and it all being in Hindi, moved on. Many of them had questions in their eyes. Had they asked, they would have know, it was his pain that made me linger, it was the poet in me who was so moved that the feet wouldn't, it was the truth of humanity that made me weep. And you! You couldn't be bothered to spend more then 15 mins in a building with few images of history, Josef and a whole nation had to live through.  

The few lines, if you can read Hindi, were what I wrote as I moved towards the end of the gallery. If you don't know the language here's my best effort at a translation, there is cultural imagery in there, that I can't translate. 

You won't find 

handful of water to drown in

or 2 ft ground to bury under

and oh the shameless you!

Who can't even disintegrate

in your own shame. 

The poems written on Stalin, and everyone like him who ever lived.