Raise your fist, praise your fist,
reclaim your rights, wage your fist.
Families, fingers huddled together,
aching, raging for living better,
with fiery grit, for sweat and kiss,
for love of dreams, stage your fist.
Raise your fist, praise your fist,
for your beloveds, wage your fist.
From every window, in every street,
vow for a vigil till the corrupt perish.
Yes, you can! You must, you will
For a transformed life, stake your fist.
Raise your fist, praise your fist,
for your brothers, wage your fist.
When fear reigns, hope-flowers wither,
orphaned ideas die, love turns bitter,
to reclaim the joys your kids will inherit,
challenge the night, set ablaze your first.Â
Raise your fist, praise your fist,
for saving humanity, wage your fist.
Song-less we live, unsung we die,
in our spirit only remorse is high,
abandon the shores of what if, only if,
for anthems of hope, uncage your fist.
Raise your fist, praise your fist,
for the reign of benign, wage your fist.
Tyrants, down, down, out, out,
junta has woken, your time is out,
accept no excuses, lies or promise,
assert your liberty, salvage your fist. Â
Raise your fist, praise your fist,
Triumph over tyranny, wage your fist.
The way is within, all answers are within,
against your own failings rage your fist,
there is no reward, if there is no act,
for change & progress, engage your fist.Â
Raise your fist, uncage your fist,
For reform, rebirth, wage your fist!
Vivek Sharma is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at University of Illinois, Chicago.
His research interests lie in optics, dynamics, elasticity and self-assembly (odes) of complex fluids and soft materials. His research on colors of beetles and butterflies, breath figures, protein rheology, gold nanoparticles and polysaccharide rheology is published or forthcoming in science journals (Lab on a Chip, PNAS, Science, Materials Sci & Eng Reports, Soft Matter, EPL and Rheologica Acta). Current focus areas include fizzics (study of bubbles, drops, emulsions & foam), protein rheology & spectroscopy, nonlinear viscoelasticity, soap films & bubbles, 3D printing, buifluids and colors, rheology & processability of complex fluids.
Vivek is a published poet. He reads & writes in Hindi and English. His poetry and essays in English are published in Poetry, Atlanta Review, The Cortland Review, Kartika Review, Bateau, Muse India, Reading Hour, etc. He contributes columns and verses to Divya Himachal (Hindi newspaper in India). Vivek’s first collection, “Saga of a Crumpled Piece of Paper” (63 poems, English, Writers Workshop, Calcutta) was published in 2009.
Vivek spend his childhood in Himachal Pradesh and undergraduate years in IIT Delhi. He pursued a doctoral degree at Georgia Tech, Atlanta (2003-2008) and he was a postdoctoral research associate in Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (MA) (2008-2012). He currently resides in Chicago.
