The light has gone out

a poem by Namrata Basu

Gasping and panting,
I was struggling for life.
Until it was night
Which saw the end to my strife.
On came death
With arms open wide.
Which to the heavens above
Was my guide.

From my flight to the skies,
I peered down
To look at the land
Which was once my own.
But no longer
Did it belong to me.
It was drenched in blood
And that was all I could see.

A little girl
Alone in the park,
Kept weeping in pain
But there was none to hark.
The mosque was in ruins.
Not to spare the temples.
Hail! Secularism!
What an example!

Men thirsty of blood,
Houses on fire.
My sweet little land
Was now a funeral pyre.
It’s not a curse
But a social wrath.
Oh my friends,
It is our own Gujarat!