Tryst with terror - on that ‘Black Wednesday’ night of 26/11, when thunder of multiple explosions rocked ‘Metropolis-that-never-sleeps’. and startled pigeons fluttering their fragile feathers flee away from their cozy nests and take to the smoldering sky. Fire ascends as hungry flames from the glorious dome lick the ornate façade of the iconic Taj Hotel - facing the Gateway of India, Mumbai’s magnificent landmark lights up with eerie light while sinister smoke stains the heavens…
Terror unfolds its ugly face at C.S. Terminal as heartless ‘merchants of death’ wielding lethal arsenals of attack – AK47s and grenades, RDX and bombs, Gunfire unleashed indiscriminatingly on hapless commuters who are sitting ducks! Human limbs scatter like crimson autumn leaves on the blood-covered platform, while ‘Queen’s necklace’ bleeds from weeping wounds of violence, after the gun-battle…
Devastating demons of religious fanaticism grin as they shower bullets in Oberoi Trident and tormented terror targets tremble while going through the beastly onslaught Sadistic satans smile at the mind-numbing massacre as they hold the panicky innocents to ransom at Nariman House, its walls streaked with blood-stains tinted like beetle-leaf spatter from the heap of corpses…
Mother India weeps compassionately on the repetitive rape of her financial capital, by a score of cross-border terrorists! Let us give the ferocious militants a hard-hitting Zero-tolerant message – “Do not consider our patience as the euphemism for cowardice”
Let us salute our ‘Brave-hearts’ the men-in-uniform, Let the fires of outrage and reprisal burn eternally in our hearts and souls and Let us all pledge that – No more exploitation by the unscrupulous politicians No more rhetoric blame-games of vituperative Government No more ‘Home’ for the misfit ministers No more flaccid clumsy chief ministers No more vote bank appeasement gimmicks No more proxy wars from the hallowed ‘human rights’ crusaders No more sly bashings from the so-called pseudo-secular shibboleths No more crocodile-tears for the gallant martyrs who fell to the bullets No more grieving mass graves and no more rows of funeral pyres No more orchestrated candle-lit peace marches No more withered wreaths of worthless words on the memorials No more eulogistic tom-foolery of the ‘Mumbai’s bouncing back resilient spirit’ No more mourning and no more tears for Mumbai Enough is enough!!!
On the occasion of First Anniversary of 26/11, this is a heart-felt tribute to the innocent victims of the Mumbai carnage. My tears of anger, pain and frustration have poured down on paper, in form of this poem.
