For Pradeepan Deepachelvan and for all Readers
Photo courtesy of UCA News
Customs officers knocked
on his door this morning.
They said they had orders
to seize his five books,
all 350 copies of them,
imported from
their printers
in neighboring India.
What in Heaven’s
name does
the government
think? To stop
a man’s right to read,
to think, to reflect,
to confiscate his private
property?
Are these books
like land the Army
must appropriate
owing to extraordinary
circumstances
like the Uncivil War?
Or should I call it
The Eelam Separatist War?
Or the War conducted
by zealots otherwise
known As Tigers?
Words matter.
Books matter.
Spin matters.
Let him have
his books back.
