[dropcap]F[/dropcap]OR Your honest earnings to be looted is not the most dangerous thing
Police beatings are not the most dangerous thing
The greedy traitorous fist is not the most dangerous thing.
To be rounded up by the State while sitting peacefully is bad/ to submit to silence is bad/
But these are not the most dangerous things
To be drowned in the cacophony of corruption is bad but not the most dangerous/ to study in the light of the fireflies — to pass time with fists tightly clenched – are bad but not the most dangerous
The most dangerous is when life slips quietly out of a corpse—when it does not rage to stay
To resign to the monotony of home-work-home – that is the most dangerous
When our dreams die is the most dangerous moment when time stops even as your wrist watch clocks it
The most dangerous eye is the one that has forgotten to look as if with a loving kiss: but has a dull degrading repetitive vision
The most dangerous song is the one parroted like a boring lesson even while standing like a goonda filled with hubris at the door of the activist
The most dangerous moon is the one that rises in dismal courtyards after a riot but does not hurt your eyes as if with chilli powder
The most dangerous direction is the setting sun of your soul
And a bit of its dead light pierces the east of your body
For Your honest earnings to be looted is not the most dangerous thing
Police beatings are not the most dangerous thing
[The poem is written by Paash. Paash was the pen name of Avtar Singh Sandhu, a poet from Punjab, who was killed by Khalistani extremists in 1988]