Poem: Partition, 1947

By Varsha Sundriyal

Can you tell me Abbu about the war you went through?
I saw burning houses with bodies within.
I saw children dying, women abused, and men brutalised.
One lost son, one lost father, one lost faith, and one lost hope.

Wives tearing their hair out.
Not sindoor but blood on heads.
Clutching their tattered clothes running for their lives.
Hiding children on their breast shielding them from the bullets.

Families scrambling for life.
Blood running like a river.
Fleeing the very place we called home
Where no friends could be found.

This was the war when we forget what it means to be human.
This was the war when religion divided us.
This was the war of 1947.

These horrors visit me every night.
I heard the same cry in 1971.
I suffered the same desolation in 1965, ’71, ’99.

My soul shatters every time
‘Paradise’ on earth is torn to pieces.
Every time the riots break loose
My heart shudders, and I see death looming ahead.

Bio:
Varsha Sundriyal is pursuing her graduation in English Literature from University of Delhi.

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