Kashmir Bleeds
Where are the champions of peace and justice?
Is not your conscience on trial?
Or what miracles you are waiting for!
The frightening days of terror are unending,
The dark night spreads like a black cloak, converting life into death,
The mountains weep and crack under the grief.
Water mingles with blood and the Dal Lake stops its flow.
The Shikaras stand like ghosts at the edges,
Broken and forlorn.
And the boatmen are like mummified flesh taken out of Pyramids,
They wait for the tourists,
The valleys echo the heavy tread of marching soldiers,
They leave behind a line of congealed blood.
A pallid moon discovers the crying children,
They stand behind the tightly shut rusty window,
The mother stands still, frozen and transfixed.
A dying candle flares and illuminates her blue cold lips.
Her heart beats out of her chest, and her frame shakes terribly,
Her young son is in the prison, daughter raped and husband lynched
What would the soldiers do with her or with her hungry children?
What would the soldiers do with her or with her hungry children?
I have a lot of work to do today,
I would bury the dead and erase the brutal memory,
But I know how to manage the dead,
I am the undertaker now, and have witnessed the white snow turning into red,
Groves into graves, courtyards into graveyards,
The glare of snow blinds the Sun,
And it does not dare to look at the martyrs,
The hour has come to remember the dead,
To liberate the land, and celebrate the victory.
To liberate the land, and celebrate the victory.