I wrote this poem while traveling alone on a midnight train, surrounded by silence and dim lights. The quiet rhythm of the engine and the gentle sway of the coach stirred a deep sense of reflection within me. As the world outside passed in darkness, my thoughts flowed freely onto the page.
Make me dark again!
I was born from a handsome father,
But still, I was dark in colour.
Racist comments made me bother,
I never had destiny's favour.
All my sisters were dazzling bright,
I was quite jealous of them.
Everyone hated me in first sight,
Nobody ever desired a dark gem.
Asikni was my Sanskrit name,
Which literally meant a dark shade.
Nobody wanted me to have fame,
As I was like a dark queen of spade.
Sanskrit is the language of Gods,
Even she failed to give me honour.
I will never forgive all the Lords,
For mocking my colour.
I was always considered a fake heir,
Of my tall, sparkling white father.
He fed me snow to make me fair,
Yet I remained his dark daughter.
My father was the tallest man,
To ever stand on this Earth.
Still, I felt lowest as a woman,
Since dark ones had zero worth.
God made me when He was rather,
In an extremely wicked mood.
Who wraps Himalayas' daughter,
In a dark and shadowed hood?
I decided to invoke God forcefully,
After all, I was Himalayas' daughter.
God came to ask me finally,
"What do you wish, Asikni River?"
I asked Him to make my waters bright,
And to grant me a different name.
I told Him to keep me in poets’ sight,
And bless me with literary fame.
God granted me a divine boon,
That I will be renamed as Chenab.
He promised in the witness of the Moon,
That my waters will shine in Punjab.
He said that Chenab will shine so bright,
That people will have to close their eyes.
He claimed that poets will reach new height,
If they see me through their poetic eyes.
When all slept, even the birds,
A poet sat near me, worlds apart.
Through his pen and words,
My waters kissed the Ranjha's heart.
Waris Shah stared the monsoon skies,
His pen converted paper into flames.
He told the world that love never dies,
Heer Ranjha became household names.
I don't know how to read or write,
But my waters felt Heer's pain.
I wept when I heard Ranjha's plight,
When he could not meet Heer again.
For centuries, my waters fed the land,
Where Hindus and Muslims lived as one.
Their laughter danced along my sand,
Beneath the shade of Punjab’s golden sun.
On one day, they marked a border,
And they cut me into two parts.
Partition made things out of order,
And spilled blood out of hearts.
The mustard fields once bathed in gold,
Later they burnt under utter despair.
I watched brothers raising their sword,
Where once they danced at harvest fair.
I saw a mother toss her child,
To save him from a burning train.
I saw fate being mute and wild,
As screams soaked in monsoon rain.
No azan rose, no aarti was sung,
Just silent nights and curfewed days.
The tricolor and crescent hung,
Good days were lost in memory’s haze.
Lahore’s bazaars turned ghostly pale,
Amritsar bled on every street.
My ears only heard widows’ wail,
As they walked with anklet-less feet.
These girls once danced in wedding red,
I saw them floating cold beneath my flow.
Their bangles broke, their mehndi bled,
They had no land, no home to go.
I saw thousands of men in fight,
And female foreheads getting blank.
Hundred women got raped every night,
I saw women losing honour on my bank.
I had seen Sohni swimming with pots,
But one immature pot killed Sohni.
Hundred brains became immature pots,
And now killed hundreds of Sohni.
Dead bodies danced upon my wave,
And traumatized Amrita Pritam.
My haunting sight of a living grave,
Forced her to write a bleeding poem.
Tears of a hundred Ranjhas broke,
A Hundred Heers floated in my womb.
I had forced Amrita Pritam to invoke,
Legendary Waris Shah from his tomb.
My water now carried vermilion's spark,
I watched married women floating dead.
My waters were naturally always dark,
But now they had turned bright red.
On that day I missed my dark shade,
And asked destiny to ease my pain.
I wished to be a dark queen of spade,
I wanted someone to make me dark again!
