Kiss of death

Time flows,
Thirteen years gone now, memories are all that linger,
Blasts that shook,
Physically and emotionally, the city of a million souls…

Death scraped past me,
But mercifully spared me,
But is it really mercy or is it a veiled punishment?
Death snatched my happiness away…

A family lost in a moment…
One moment I had everything, the next moment everything cruelly snatched,
Such is the frail nature of life,
Fate is cruel and unforgiving…

It was these hands that lighted the pyre,
Of those barely recognizable bodies,
Which just moments before,
I had claimed as kith and kin…

Why did fate spare me alone…
Perhaps for a better purpose,
To bring solace to tormented souls,
To find peace in the sorrows of others…

Now again memories come back,
The tracks rocked that day,
The lifeline of the city severed though momentarily,
The one moment was enough…

Two hundred lives lost,
Many maimed and crippled,
Doomsday had returned,
Is so much irrevocable loss just enough reparation?

Kashmir is not the issue,
Nor is it terrorism,
It is the crooked mentality of a few misguided, wretched souls,
Guided by their masters…

Puppets on a silver chain,
With the carrot of paradise dangling at one end,
Desire has become uncontrollable,
Anything desired has to be achieved, no matter what the cost…

Life is the same,
Be it a Kashmiri, a Pakistani or a Mumbai-ite,
Death and pain spare none in the wake of disaster,
Has man stooped so much?

Love and peace is the answer,
Not hate and killings as reparation,
An eye for an eye,
A brick for a stone thrown at you by an ignorant soul,
Will it ever end?


Enough, enough, I have suffered and seen enough,
To last me more than a lifetime,
Have mercy my master,
This endless agony my lord,
When will you kiss me to death?
Where my tormented soul will find eternal rest…