Moving visuals, screams for help;
blaring sirens, smothered breaths.
A familiar synopsis
of an evening caught in fear
and a search for life in rubble.
Experts gather to analyze;
people introspect --
headlines shriek terror, terror
Tracing the scars of bloodshed
in the city through the decade
I wonder what was worse:
The mob of 2002
that killed and plundered
then moved on to prosper
through the years
Or, the faceless freak of 2008
who pledged by a cause
put together his thoughts
in an indigenous circuit
and before it triggered a havoc
like an unheard whisper
he disappeared
One raised the slogan, Jai Shri Ram
to a feverish pitch;
the other too invoked his holy words
One vowed to get even;
other evolved methods
to maximize the hurt
Between them they accumulated
a loathing,
perfected disgust.
But there were some --
the crippled, the widowed
and orphaned
left with a list of names in a mob
or skewed sketches
of twenty- something under probe.
They had not seen their foe;
didn't know
who to turn to for a succor.
This wasn't a tug of war
that one could select a winner --
nor a wrestling round, face to face.
The bomb was meticulously packed
with an explosive resolve;
the mob had numbers.
Between them they worked
out an agenda --
an eye for an eye,
a blast for a burn.
Whatever was worse; I wonder,
had it reached its zenith
done its body count, served its purpose?
