My country men urge me to create an optical illusion of sizes by drawing a thick black line under my narrow eyes, Cause in my country my looks deceive me to be an outsider while my Adhaar card says otherwise, It pleads me to sing the National Anthem in a specific accent, So at breakfast table along with apples I shape my tongue to sing in a tone which matches that of the rest.

They ask me to be a chameleon and in return they assure me that there will be no room for any doubt, So that's what I do - drape a saree, plug my ears with gazals and camouflage into the crowd, But soon enough like a suppressed cough bursts out a question about my identity, "Where do you come from?" "Which is your country?"

The kajal fails to broaden my narrow eyes which resembles to the people of the neighbouring country across the border, My Playlist and mind shuffles to get back into the right order, The tongue shifts back to its place, now my broken hindi creates a mess, The mocking laughter trespassing my earphone, wounds the scar afresh.

Like broken records my country men keep striking the same note, People like me are only convenient to remember while counting votes, Otherwise, the record keeps fixating itself over the same lyrics, It's a loop we have entered and must keep repeating ourselves over and over again until it gets fixed.

Which is indefinite when it will happen, But we wait for the day our identity will no longer raise a doubt or a question, And I hope it happens before the loop turns into an everlasting dead-end, Before my country cripples under the guilt of murdering its own people in their own land.