Not all Afghans are tall, swarthy, bearded, hulking,

Walking with a stick and bags of money and dry fruits

Across the pages of old Bangla novels.

No,

Some look like Justin Trudeau.

Like the young man, I saw in a Kolkata street,

Brown hair and eyes of hazelnut,

Looking for all the world like Aladdin

Stepped off his carpet into a broken corner of the city.

And now I cannot look at Canada’s Prime Minister

Without seeing the face of tragedy.

Had this been Disney or a fairy tale,

You’d have run into each other.

Brave friend, I wish you well.

May the purple colour of your clothes be

Not the purple of smoke and bombs and gunfire

But the purple sky of an Afghan sunset.

~ Dipanwita Sen

Burdwan, India