One death makes a perfect martyr,
Two deaths divide a country,
More deaths call a municipal trucker;
Flowers and garbage rest at par.
Who remembers the Jalliyan Wallas,
Name by name, we remember the Sikhs,
Remember do we the Kargil wars;
The victims lay buried in their states.
Nothing more precious than loam,
A damp plot aside a country stream;
Death delivers a handful of ashes
To mingle under lonely bushes.
Why so much cry, such shallow compassion?
A soldier’s life begs no compensation.
Ice or rock, garden or garbage ,building or barrack
Where he sinks, sizzles, or shivers, nobody does ask.
Listen! The red tomb calls- come brothers, come close,
Let us now shake hands safely under the garbage.
(Written after reading the news:The bodies of four Chhattisgarh policemen, who were killed in a Maoist attack in Dantewada district in Bastar onSunday the 26.06.2011 night, were transported in the local Kirandul municipality’s garbage truck to the district)
