This week, Shail recasts five major events in the week that was in verse. A seven-year-child was brutally murdered in Ryan International School, Gurgaon, actor Tom Alter fights Cancer, Sasikala was ousted from her party in Tamilnadu, a blast in London tube injured many as terrorism raised its ugly head once again and the plight of Rohingya refugees. Read these in the weekly column, exclusively in Different Truths.
Ryan Kills a Dandelion
The boy, a child all of seven; 
What did he do
to deserve an untimely barbaric death?
Do children even envisage a demise brutal like this?
For them life is fun, no worries, trusting, full of bliss.
Hadn’t the murderer been a child too
once upon a time?
Then, how could he commit
such a dastardly crime?
Accusations abound,
responsibility blame game flies in the air.
Ryan school is put on radar-
hurt, anger, anxiety everywhere.
Parents of the slain child
snatched of their only joy,
their reason to live,
their hope for a future
now, non-existent, lifeless!
With You Tom Alter
The ‘blue-eyed saheb’
has donned on another role of late-
a patient he is now in real life
waging a war on stage4 skin cancer.
Grandson of Christian missionaries,
his persona speaks volumes
of his tryst with destiny-
an American’s Indian predestination.
More Indian than most ethnic Indians are;
a teacher, a journalist, a poet –
a multi-faceted star.
His white skin, those twinkling blue eyes
his only giveaway of his foreign origins.
His grasp of Indian culture,
‘tehzeeb’ so to say puts to shame
many a superficial Indian murmur.
A policeman, a British officer he has been
in innumerable plays and movies.
Today, as Tom Alter is in the midst of a new act
he did not want to enact
let’s all pray for the wellbeing of this wonderful man-
the ‘blue-eyed saheb’ star of the acting clan.
Sasikala Ousted
Even the grave was not spared
of her rendezvous with power.
Her villainous hands hit the slab
that separated her
from her once powerful companion,
enacting a Tamil ritual of avenge
Of loyalists of Pandya kings
to destroy the Cholas.
Who was she going to annihilate now
When he two leaves of the party’s symbol
EPS and OPS she had separated
had come back together
to throw her out of the rudderless AIADMK ship
under her leadership
which she ruled by proxy from Bengaluru prison.
Looks like Jayalalitha had
from the memorial risen!
Tenacious Twirl of Terror
Terror has no name, no shame.
It flows unabated in the blood
of innocent lives;
It flies unabashedly in the air
of vulnerable human existence.
Terror needs no cause, no reason.
It blatantly commits treason.
That’s why it recently targeted
a packed rush hour underground
commuter train in London
making an explosion in a carriage
setting it on fire, hurting people
who alarmed, disturbed,
anxious to save their lives
injuring themselves in the stampede
terrorised,
terrified.
Condemnations hurled.
Yet another fracas of
terror’s tenacious tentacles twirled.
Rohingya Rues
Refugees in their own nation –
a terror tale, an ethnic cleansing
is the reported accusation.
Links with militants a possibility.
Neighbouring countries looking up to
India for support from terrorist outfits,
from a violent perforation of illegal immigrants.
Not inexperienced in the tales of woe,
of people abandoned, banned in their own land
forced to seek shelter in the largest, oldest
territory of democracy
already struggling to keep its ever-growing population
in control, making innumerable attempts
to stay united amidst diversity and terror.
Rohingya refugees a humanitarian cause
to fight for and yet,
a possible security crisis,
a probable insurgency.
A nation with people still dying hungry,
already burdened with a political bane-
a fight for survival flustering
with issues existing to abhor.
Do we really need another cause to fight for?
©Shail Raghuvanshi
Photos from the Internet
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