by Megha Raina
Somewhere a door never saw its owner again,
never saw those kids swinging by,
and singing the rhymes that made no sense,
no knocking of friends and climbing competitions.
But it witnessed a child seeing his father die,
a wife being raped while her man was shot,
and the silence that screamed after this.
It saw some men trying to break the lock,
burn it down and steal all that it guarded.
Oh, the poor unlucky door!
It saw prayers being unanswered,
deaths unaccounted and friends who backstabbed.
The wooden chunk didn’t give up to petrol and fire,
but gave up to the betrayal by neighbour doors.
That well-built old lovely door,
the one that doesn’t exist anymore −
it is in memories of the owner who locked it
and could never open it again.
Ah, the flashback!
The door, the veranda facing it,
the garden with the greens, reds and yellows,
the childhood games, and the unseen dreams,
the people who stood with you,
the many beautiful memories of homeland,
everything flashes when people ask,
“Will this Kashmir issue ever be solved?”
Picture by Megha Raina
Very touching….can actually visualise what the Pandits would have gone through.