Barbed Wires, Fences and Borders
Barbed Wires, Fences and Borders
There’s barbed wires everywhere,
Inside homes. Outside of them too.
Pieces of glass placed on the walls so no outsiders can come in
Security cameras and electric wires that companies install
If there are any trespassers within minutes a fleet of guards will come in
Barbed wires are essential for security
I don’t fear them
I don’t have to trespass them.
In British clubs in colonial India there were no Indians allowed
Restaurants in Lahore say ‘right of entry reserved’
This is for our protection of course
To protect against the wandering poor
The thieves, the troublemakers
So the ambiance of the restaurants can stay clean
No one laughs too loudly or chews with their mouth open
It would disturb the other guests at the restaurant
I take my son to the park
There are security guards and metal fences with spiky edges
The gates are closed
The guard at the gate pushes one open for us
Another guard is busy telling families to not sit on the grass
Telling children with tattered clothes and no shoes that they can’t play here
I make two friends
One’s father is a cook in one of the neighboring houses
The other is his uncle’s son who has come to visit him from the village
We eat icecreams that melt too quickly in the summer heat
Bought from the shop next to the park that my new found friends are not allowed in
The shop has air conditioning
They wait outside as I pay
They want to give my child swings in return for the half-melted icecreams
Nothing is free and available in their world
The security guard rushes towards us
The boys run and climb the fence to go out before he gets to them
He tells them eating is not allowed inside the park
I eat my icecream under the shade of a tree inside the park
They stand outside
Waiting to come in
Waiting to be told off and run out again
To the boys it has become a game
We have barbed wires everywhere
And borders
Escaping the wires to live life and take swings becomes the destiny of some
For some of us, we walk through the doors
Some climb over walls with guards running behind them telling them to leave
Some have passports that get stamped
After a security check and a few questions you are welcomed
For some it is a ‘game’
Each border a new one
With new hurdles and challenges
They climb over the boundary walls
And are constantly told to get out
The guard comes to me and tells me I have created trouble for him
His expression solemn
“They pluck flowers
Run astray
They are uncontrollable
The park is not for them bibi”.
The news tells us migrants come
They are lawless criminals and fugitives
They create trouble
Europe is not for them
Barbed wires at home
Boundary walls outside
climbing over both perpetually–endlessly
I ask the boy who came from a village close to okara what his father did
He is “gone to german”
One day I too will go, he says.