Abiding the pitter-patter, the rattling rain
Submerged to tip, toeing in Sutlej’s wet sandy grains;
Below the searing storm of heavens, the bellowing roar of decry,
Constant cankering crying croppers, justly punished by the sky.
‘Oh Lord’, they weep, swearing about the injustice,
Who slaughtered brothers like sheep? Who forgone armistice?

No ravages of time may turn the deep wet mud,
A striking archaic red, bloodied and pristinely stuck.
Slaughtered, massacred, cleaved, the bodies uneven,
Partition- a hell on earth with resurgence of demons.
Sickly sweet smelling blood, emanating from the bank,
Machiavellian roll of die,
Just worthy of an English whimsical smile,
‘What a nice little prank’.

What a proud history!
What a glorious prelude of Modern India!
A pathetic putrid victory
Our freedom reduced to a shallow trivia.
Gazing across the superficial border, our ‘unsavoury’ neighbour
Moistening meek-eyed men on both sides,
Whose generations allocated fruits of labour.

Avid apostles of Geeta, Granth and Quran
With blood-boiling savagery, took women to sabres and Kirpans.
Inhumane alacrity to rape,
Unequivocally forgoing clarity in the wake
Incited, influenced and instigated by the chaotic pull,
Red-eyed, mad and rabid dogs, a score of raging bulls.

More than half a century, families lost to the sands of time,
Just pitiful poems and proofs, or sentimental shrill rhymes.
A few people’s avarice, only millions at stake,
The happily smiling faces of leaders,
While eating the Independence Day cake.

Awiral Grover

Semester I, VSJMC