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Here's a song I wrote for highly respected medical doctor and human rights activist, Dr Binayak Sen, who has been imprisoned by the state of Chhattisgarh (India) for sedition or waging war against the state, and of being a 'sympathiser' of the naxals (radical left, armed groups in India). I wrote it out of a sense of outrage and helplessness, but also as part of an attempt to understand what exactly we mean when we make a crime out of 'sympathy' - sympathy for whom, drawing upon what, resulting in what, for whom? Questions like that.
"Last night I cried in a movie
You cry, if that's all you can do
Last week I stopped reading a book
It hurt too much to see it through
There's bitterness there's misery
Things going wrong in my homeland
I fret but I don't do much more
It is not easy to take a stand
Besides, there are consequences
To building worlds better and free
'Coz somewhere up in Raipur jail,
A man is in for sympathy.
I saw a girl with legs splayed wide
She must have been eight or nine
She had a baby on her hips
She touched my arm then touched her lips
I knew her from everyday touch
She liked my hands, stroked my watch
She says, will you give something today?
Maybe tomorrow? But no, I say
Don't ask again, I will not pay
Don't tell me that you're hungry.
It's been two years in Raipur jail
A man is in for sympathy.
Men sit on streets with cut off arms
They crawl to thrust your shame at you
You toss a coin but not always
They don't even expect you to
There are no rights about these things
Nobody has the right to ask
That you set this country right
To bring people out of the dark
You have a life, so you're afraid.
No reason why you shouldn't be.
'Coz somewhere up in Raipur jail
A man is in for sympathy.
I heard two girls on prime time speak
The newspaper went on all week
About long years of rape at home
We talked about it on the phone
This strange beast they call incest
This man who wasn't just a guest
Where do you go when danger sleeps
In your bed and it's yours for keeps
How does a child escape and where
How to start over when she's free?
And somewhere up in Raipur jail
A man is in for sympathy.
Tonight I'll watch a DVD
A story sweet and sad and blue
I'll cry for people dead and gone
And for the times we fail the truth
But I'll remember not to howl
No screaming, shouting, nothing loud
About rage or incessant pain
Not a word of blood or shroud
There are too many ears around
And not enough eyes that see
That somewhere up in Raipur jail
A man is in for sympathy.
For more information, please visit www.binayaksen.net
[Cross-posted on www.anniezaidi.com]
