Kanishka’s Headless Statue

by Ananya S. Guha / October 25th, 2026

If you tamper with history
Then history revolts
Men
Women
Rewriting history is onerous
History is perfect mirror
Come, there is no point in
Debating with history
History is a grand narrative
Cleopatra’s nose swung history
So you cannot reverse it
Not by upturning it
Not by reversing it
Not by academic blandishments
Changing text books will not do
Changing ideologies will not do
Stick to the Ashokan emblem
Praise it with Buddhistic zeal
Embracing religion after a bloody war

Sub nationalities orchestrate a nation

No Hegelian dialectics will prove
That Indian history is a long narrative
Of fission and fusion. Only history

But no Muslim, Christian and Hindu
Please
Have you forgotten how one man in
The sixteenth century tried to integrate them?
Akbar

They now are taking a sterner
Look at history, and how you have
Reduced it to rubble.

Kanishka’s headless statue

Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India, where he was born and brought up. He has been writing and publishing his poetry for the last forty years. His poetry has been published in both electronic and print formats such as: Indian Literature, Other Voices, Osprey Journal, Glasgow Review, The Literary Nest, Up The Staircase, Asia Writes, Art Arena, Praxis Online, Muse India, Your One Phone Call, In Between Hangovers, The Peeking Cat Magazine, Post Colonial Text among others. He has also written widely on educational and social matters. He has ten collections of poetry and his poetry has been anthologized in various collections of Indian poetry in English. He holds a doctoral on the novels of William Golding. Read other articles by Ananya S..

This article was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2026 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.