Santa, will you materialise on my coasts
someday on your ‘reign’-deer?
Will you plunder my temples and break
my house?
Santa, will you rewrite my books
for me? Call my struggles mutiny and my
religion an abomination?
Saint Nick, will you divide my people?
Dye your beard red in blood? Or will it
be blue in the indigo you made us grow?
Santa, can I come to meet you
at the North Pole? Why does the sign
on your door say: Indians and dogs
not allowed?
And you, why do you sneak in, Santa?
Are you a thief? (Or a trader)
How will you reach me
across the Indian Ocean?
Does your sleigh double as a gunboat?
Is the Jolly Roger (Union Jack) your banner?
Santa, this time, when you place our
‘humanitarian aid’ beneath the
Christmas tree, look closely:
Look
At the corpses hanging from its needles:
ornaments. Objects. Slaves.
Look
at their pallor, their ribcages. They died
in the famines you helped create.
I wonder whose wish that was?
Look
at the ribbons: pieces of khadi,
muslin? Scraps of cotton saris,
last remnants of the women that fled
when you hastily partitioned my country.
Maybe if you look close enough, you will
find their bangles, their hair, their payals.
Maybe you will find their train tickets;
tickets to a new home they never reached.
Maybe you can take their ashes and
their bones to your museums?
Place them alongside the mummies
(also stolen).
In the hope that they, too, make it
through the afterlife.
And reach home.
Santa, this Christmas bring me hope,
bring me the idols you stole.
Santa, this time, you be the ‘good’ kid.
And we will keep out the stale cookies
and milk we are left with.