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| painting (c) tahseen khan |
The child looked out the window
He saw the rainbow in the sky
It was a continuum
With so many shades of color
He wished to paint it
But the child wasn't allowed water colours
Rather only twelve sketch pens
The teacher cut through the rainbow
And laid it out in seven stripes
V.I.B.G.Y.O.R.
With each band of color
Separted from the other
With the thick black outline of a pencil
Each of which
Was filled neatly by the child
With the seven colours
The teacher examined the drawing
And judged that the colors were correct
Now, the rainbow was plastic
Made of seven coloured bands
The feminists took apart the violet band
To make a poster
The orange was taken by Hindus
To be waved as their flag
Muslims painted their star and crescent
On the green one
Whereas the spirituals stole the indigo
The dalits wore the blue on their sleeve
While the red band was tied
To their forehead by the communists
The child was left with just the yellow
which he baked into a cake
Again he looked out the window
Felt wistful about the rainbow
However there was
A beautiful continuum of colour
Everywhere outside that classroom
But the teacher wouldn't let him
Touch the water colors
The drawing of his observation
Topped with rich imagination
Was fragmented again into neat portions
Each of which was to be filled
With one of the twelve sketch pens
Painting became less of an art
And more of a mechanical task
Which the teacher termed colouring
In which the only precision was
To keep neat outlines
Nature lost its nuance that day
The world became since then
A calculable cluster of categories
Although the child
Has changed into a man
He still works with sketch pens
While the box of water colors
Remains hidden somewhere
Buried in a deep corner
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