Cry Beloved Nation
By Narayan Rajan
Cry, Beloved Nation, weep bitter tears
White voices lament evil deeds
Brown voices sing of paradise lost
Black voices mourn generations doomed.
On white ships fleeing oppression we came
To a land of beauty and bounty,
We tilled, we killed, we took and we built
Churches to God, our gracious Lord.
The brown people who welcomed us
We thrust out into the wilderness.
Great laws enacted, great words spoken
All, all for white men and their progeny.
Oppression returned to us in black ships
Carrying humans torn from homes
From family, folks, familiar sights, dreams
To agony among white faced cruelty.
White man slew white man
To protect his right to torture
Black men, women and children.
E’en today, statues of these men taunt us.
Black voices haunt us.
“White man took my beautiful body
Left me a babe to suckle.
A child as doomed to slavery as I.”
“God gave me a lion’s strength
But I must bear the white man’s humiliation
And the contempt in my children’s eyes
Gnaws my vitals; all for their sake.”
“Separate always and somehow inferior.
In the hell-holes of our inner cities
We are doomed to live and die.
Lead-poisoned, unschooled, frozen by chill penury.”
“Why do you torment us thus?
We are not responsible for ancestral evil.
We have made amends; we have given alms
Leave us to enjoy life’s simple joys.”
The only way to exorcise the evil among us
Is to own it, look at it in broad daylight
See the dappled skin of the serpent
To abhor every slither evermore.
When church doors close out people
The creator moves out to comfort them
The devil takes over the pulpit
Inflames fear, greed, pride, kills shame.
O my beloved nation, may you ever be
A home where every child may hope and dream
Where the needy find refuge, the hungry are fed
Justice rules kindly on all humans and animals.
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Narayan Rajan, or “Raj Rajan” as he prefers to be called was born over seventy years ago in Safdurjang Hospital New Delhi. The birthing surgeon nicked his temple with his scalpel.
Raj was educated at The Lawrence School Sanawar, a residential public school (English usage, means private school), the Indian Institute Technology Kharagpur and the Indian Institute Of Science, Bangalore. He worked for the Indian Satellite Centre, NASA Ames Research Center and for almost forty Bay Area companies mostly as a contractor. His last full-time job was a two-and-a half year stint as an Apple employee.
When Raj was twenty years old he was jilted for the first time. He consoled himself by writing verse and studying classical mechanics. After recovering from a nervous breakdown in 2018, he returned to writing poetry as a means of sharing his experience.