What writers do in times of war

War does different things to different people.

It rings the cash registers of arms manufacturers and defence contractors. Oil companies rub their hands in anticipation. Terrorists rejoice at the emotions they can now whip up to recruit for their evil causes.

News networks work overtime, enflaming passions further, rather than calming people down - if it bleeds, it leads. Viewership ratings soar.

Armchair experts on the clash of civilisations make their windfalls on talk shows, stressing why everyone has always hated everyone else. Governments are quick to pass newer laws to spy on people's lives and muffle dissent before it surfaces, under the guise of security. Politicians make fiery speeches - pointing fingers at everyone but themselves. Mosques, temples, churches, synagogues welcome back their lost sheep. Death reminds most of us of God.

A few of us, not content with the state of affairs, decide that we want to get involved. We pick up our cameras and note pads and head to the war zone to report the truth - the world must know. We enrol in the Peace Corps. We rush in with the Red Cross, MSF - Doctors Without Borders, to help the war affected. We give a part of our salary to the relief efforts, donate our clothes, volunteer for organising aid. Our children empty their piggy banks for the children of war. Some of us who have little to give, give too - we pray with tears streaming down our face, for the victims of war.

What do writers do? We write.

Of all the writing on war I have seen so far, a poem on Dan Husain's blog really moved me. I would like to share it with you, with his permission, of course.

Coffee in Times of War...

Just the other day a friend asked
Have you ever tried war poetry?
War, I said, I haven’t seen one.
I was only born in seventy-one.
I’ve often seen pictures –
Oh why pictures! Even a painting
in a restaurant once –
of a Sikh General
making the Pakistanis
sign the surrender.
And then I grew up
reading lessons, history
about World War One and World War Two,
Plassey, Panipat, Waterloo,
War & Peace, The Day of Armistice,
the ancient tales of the Mahabharata,
the Muharram majlises, Karbala.

But then who needs textbooks these days?
Television brings Beirut live, like irrelevant foreplay.
And if this isn’t enough there are movies –
A Bridge too Far, Platoon, Killing Fields.

But no, I have never seen a war.
I don’t know what it means
to sit through blackouts, power outages,
to hold my breath and wait
for a bomb to detonate.
I don't know what it means
to have splinters of plastic and tin
pierce through my clothes, skin.
I don't know what it means
to lose an eye, to lose a limb.
I haven’t seen my child without her head.
I don’t know what it means
when a mother grieves for her dead.
The closest I have seen a man’s guts
split wide open was from a scene
in a movie called Saving Private Ryan.

I don’t know what it means
to run from desk to desk
in a dank office corridor
asking for compensation
for a son dead in a war.

I don’t know…

My words trailed in the wispy heat
of Delhi’s August afternoon street.

I am afraid I am not qualified enough
to write a poem on war. I am
only a struggling actor running
from one audition to another
wondering when will I
get my big break.

My friend cursed himself
for bringing this topic up,
dunked his biscuit in his coffee,
as I waved to the waiter,
May we have more of these, please!

© Dan Husain
August 23, 2006