The Border Poem by Asit Kumar Sanyal

It's the fence between India and Bangladesh
India made it, BSF guards it
I have my ancestral house here... at Lalgola
Just three kilometers away from the fence
I am an ‘antevasin' in West Bengal.

After Indo- Pakistan war in ‘71
I went to Bangladesh by walk with friend
This way … to see the war affect
Border was open for many months
People from both sides used to come and go.

Indira and Mujib wanted to make a bridge
To connect the two countries rigidly
So they started to build it from both sides
But pro-Pakistanis assassinated Mujib
Two ends of the bridge never met.

Political change sealed the border
The passage locked, ways blocked
For stopping smuggling, terrorism, flesh-trade
No doubt, the fence protected us
But imprisoned too in the name of security.


*‘Antevasin' is a Sanskrit word, means …
one who lives at the border.