~story by Mikey Leung~

Poet Allen Ginsberg was an American activist who penned many criticisms of his country’s military decisions, especially the Vietnam War. During his travels in India he spent a period in Kolkata during the time of the Bangladesh’s Liberation War and later wrote a poem describing the intense misery of refugees that he personally witnessed on a visit to the camps. Several million fled for Kolkata during the Liberation War. While the poem’s cadence strikes as little more than a nursery rhyme, its imagery still has intended effect of inducing nausea and sadness. This probably what Ginsberg wanted, although what is lesser known is that he had planned to make the poem a song.

Plus a Bengali interpretation of the poem sung by Moushimi Boumik: