8/14/2019 Appeased

1/2

APPEASED, FINALLY

The hell I am appeased, finally.I remember the day, you trudged up the stairs

To my second floor government house

And slumped into one of the chairsOut in the narrow sit out.

You looked the same to me, just a little tiredAnd then you shared with me, in a matter of fact voice

But with a finality of a dagger wound.Finally I have done it,

Got Avtars widow married off

The groom is decent, the best I could findFor my daughter-in-law,

And he has promised to care for her

She had been so adamant, so unwilling to marryShe insisted she had the job,

I had managed to get for her

Sufficient to meet the needsOf hers and Avtars baby son

But I had no way out but this

I had given my word to her father

The day she came to my house as Avtars bride,To treat her like my daughter

And finally I have done my duty.

You had closed your eyes with a soundless sigh.Your eyes dearest uncle were dry

As you shared this with me, your friends daughter.

I remember they had killed Avtar Veer

Who had forcibly accompaniedHis brides old father, who had dared to venture out,

To get medicines for his brides ailing mother

On the fateful day, of the 84 riotsThey both lay dead on the road in cold blood

Beaten and stabbed to death

Their turbans off their roughly shorn heads.Avtars bride, of just a few months

Pregnant with his unborn son

Waited at her ailing mothers sideFor the medicines, her father and her husband to return.

Both were widowed together, mother and daughter

With the same blow, the same place, the same way, the same timeBy the same drunken butchers and preachers of hate.

Two of them have been marked uncle and finally declared found guilty

You are no more dear uncle to see justice triumph

After 29 years of the crime.

8/14/2019 Appeased

2/2

MY FIRST TEACHING ASSIGNMENT

Finally justice triumphed after such a lonely drudgeThere are no haloes around the judges heads

They have pronounced their verdict

And two of the villains implicatedHave been finally declared FOUND GUILTY

Of killing you, my Class VIIIMy children, my friends, my students.

You have turned to dustYour ashes blown away by winds

You were raped and butchered and set on fire

With tyres around your necks,Barely into your teens my young ones,

Your bodies lay unclaimed for days,

Your homes torched and families burnt.Cold blooded professional killers and butchers

Were recruited to do the job.

How fearlessly you faced death for faithLike the Gurus four martyred sons

Ajit, Jujhar, Fateh and Zorawar

At Chamkaur and Sirhind

Finally you can sleep my little angelsThe honourable sleep of death

Which you met undeservedly

For the crime you had not doneYour innocent laughter rings once more

In the school building which was razed to the ground

On the fate less day of the 84 riots.

Good old Mr. Bedi, the old estate officer,May his soul rest in peace

Was burnt alive while fighting till the last

To save his school buildingOf which they left not a stone

Not even rubble as a reminder

All you could see was the black soot risingIn this insignificant place Trans-Yamuna

Turned into a vast Jallianwala

By our own fellow countrymen.We all had parted never to meet again

But I know we will meet up there

In heaven my friendsTo play the games we left mid way on the 31st

Of that bloody October in 1984.

I am crying for you my first class

My very first teaching assignmentThe children of my heart

Your death has not been in vain,

If people solemnly pledge this communal rot to end.