HOME...



This is what was his home once,
When there were not any sound of guns,
No bullets were fired,
The tranquil valley of his was admired.


He played around in the rooms,
Now abandoned, looking gloom,
He remembers himself as a child,
Roaming around in the wilds.


The flowers then were lovely,
The sheep so cuddly,
The streams pure,
Not coloured with any gore.


Their apple orchards,
He still remembers,
Where all the children with rosy cheeks,
Would go and have their choicest pick.
  

Running in the courtyard
That now looks desolate and scarred,
The plants that were once well nurtured,
Now stand dry and tortured.


The same way tortured,
When terrorism raised its ugly head,
All scared and frightened,
Bullets and bombs sounded.


Where peace prevailed,
Brotherhood dominated,
Now bred hatred
For each other and mistrust.


While he roams about the insides,
Vividly remembering each day, when here they did reside,
Maa cooking the most delicious meals,
With her kiss, every night their eyes she sealed.


Grandpa and Paa busy with business,
Of shawls, fruits and sweetmeats,
All around there was happiness
And blitheness.   


Then arrived that dark night,
When all of their tribe had leave affright, 
Leaving their homes behind,
Fleeing to areas undefined.


They were stopped amidst their flight,
He hid behind his Maa in fright,
His Paa and Grandpa, bh those cruel men were murdered
His Maa shocked, terrified, just widowed.


His young, beautiful aunt was molested,
Forced upon and her modesty raged,
She turned to stone, all tears dried,
One day in the government camp she died.


Maa was now a machine,
Turning old and lean,
Bringing her children up was her goal,
She had turned into a different soul.


Now a man, he returned back to his land of birth,
His motherland, mother earth,
Where resided joy and mirth,
Of which now there was a dearth.


He set his foot forth in his house,
Various emotions on the rouse,
A sense of loss,
As painful remembrances too crossed.


He sat there for sometime,
Feeling the steep climbs,
The rigmarole of emotions,
He got up at the slightest motion.


Although he wanted to stay longer,
He could not bear the past trauma any longer,
He just said a small prayer for peace,
So all the turmoil and turbulence would cease.


So one day he can get his mother too,
Before this world she bid adieu,
So she is able to breathe her last in the land of her forefathers,
In a land of peace, without gunshots, fires or any emotional blisters.


**Written in solidarity with all my Kashmiri friends who lost everything to terrorism, even their homes.

©Madhumita