On Seeing Bahadur Shah Zafar
The Last Mughal Emperor
1775 – 1862
A world
Reversed
Son of a pig—
A viceroy will take pleasure
In a king exposed
Bolstered on a charpoy—
Gaunt in white kurta;
Block-printed pajamas?
Long stem of a hookah—
A humid verandah
A garrison in Rangoon
E
O, Delhi,
The Red Fort
Yesterday –seems ages ago–
Court painters painted
His portrait for posterity
Slithers of their brush—
A halo “God’s Shadow”
Honorifics
Cross-legged regalia—
Woven gardens
Blooming beneath his feet
Subjects trembling—
In front of him as they had
In front of his father and his
The garden ravaged—
Zafar, a memory of his splendor
Restraint of his sigh, itself a sigh
Rafiq Kathwari is a Monday poet at 3Quarks Daily.