Has my life stopped?

Or, has the time

Gone still? The heart

Keeps hopping like

A grasshopper,

Keeps mulling over,

And vexing me

With questions I

Can’t answer: Why

It happens that

The people who

Were ‘live the day

Before are, out

Of the blue, no

More? How is it

Some people turn

Into a mute,

Still snap, all of

A sudden? –

Wood pyres burn

With luminous flames,

But darken the

Lives of relations;

It may be mere

Statistic for

The government;

It is for us

Our kith and kin.

Is our world now

Suspended between

Life and death? Or,

Is early death

The norm now? I

Want to ask that

Tired, jaded man

Who lights and burns

The pyres all

Day in, day out.

Is man Hindu

Or Muslim post

His death too? Does

Cremation or

A burial mean

Hindus go to

One, Muslims go

To other place,

World after they

Depart? Does it?

                                                             ~ Parnil Yodha

                                                                   New Delhi