Mysterious Mocking Fatality

Subhransu Maitra

February 21, 1952—seventy years later— 

The butchery in Dhaka on that day 

unleashed the Bangla stream.

The stream, soon a deluge, sank the ship of Pakistan, 

and heaved high the ark of Bangladesh. 

By a mysterious mocking fatality,

the fuse that blew up Dhaka in nineteen fifty two 

was laid by Thomas Babington Macaulay 

in his Minutes on Education.

The alien stream of English

launched by Prospero manqué Macaulay 

revivified Bangla. 

By a mysterious mocking fatality,  

the putative satyr Jinnah tried to dam it up. 

But the dam burst. 

M and J, a mysterious mocking fatality 

seems to govern the career of events. 

If your shades were visiting here today, gentlemen, 

would you curse or marvel at it? 

 

(February 2022)