It’s almost a month since the Pulwama attack.

The innocent CRPF* personnel had-

Hoped to reach their destination before sunset

What an irony it is!

Forty Jawans* sunset came much before that-

A suicidal bomber like a demon pounced-

Ramming his car into their (Jawans) vehicle

A cold blooded slaughter it was!

Blasted with highly powerful explosives –

That wrenched their body parts flinging them-

All over to a great distance

What an unimaginable terrible pain they must have suffered!

A gory heinous sight for sure it was!

Those (Jawans) alive stunned beyond words –

All emotionally broken down

Witnessed their friends and colleagues being torn to pieces?

The very thought chills our blood!

Ruthlessly they were massacred on a day of ‘love’

Gruesomely snatched away from their dear loved ones

Casting total eclipse in their homes with-

The anguished Father consoling the inconsolably sobbing Mother,

The traumatized wife sees her world shattered before her eyes

The baffled kids probably naively asking-

‘Why is Papa brought home in a box all wrapped up?

Is he playing hide and seek with me?

But why isn’t he getting out of it?

I can’t bear to see him cooped up in a box-

I want to talk to him I want to play with my Papa-

Papa dear please come out, I won’t be naughty,

I won’t trouble anyone, but you please come out’

Ultimately the frightened child breaks into tears

‘Mummy, is Papa very angry with me?

Why isn’t he talking to me?

Please Mummy tell him how good I’ve been,

Please, please make him open his eyes and talk to me’

The heart broken wife no words could she utter-

Uncontrollable tears rushed down her cheeks-

Like water from a broken dam

Blinded by them –

She quickly picked up the child in her arms

Hugging and kissing him/her flabbergasted-

While the older siblings stood astounded gazing vacantly –

At their father, gone much before they understood life!

The Jawans parents empathetically watched this pathetic sight

Nothing could they do to ease the agony of the abysmal loss

To themselves, to their own daughters/ sons, to their daughter-in-law or-

 Explain anything to their beloved innocent grandchildren.

It was nothing less than a malicious brutality-

An appalling butchery it was!

God hasn’t handed over –

The switch of anyone’s life to any human being

To play with it according to one’s whims and fancies

What anyone gained from this carnage is a mystery but-

What our country and their family suffered and lost is inconceivable!

Nothing less than callous viciousness it is!

Jai Hind! Jai Jawan!

CRPF*—Central Reserve Police Force

Jawan*—A male police constable or soldier

                                                                                       ~Anuradha .S. Bannore

                                                                                     Vadodara, India