By Dolly Jadwani
The first step onto the platform, and it was like a déjà vu of a negative form,
I had never felt like this in any way,
As if the place didn’t want me to stay.
We reached our destination only a little late,
so we decided to start the pilgrimage the next day, at the day’s break.
On route the pilgrimage
Boom, Thud, Thunderclap!!!
My dad’s face is grey as ash,
Everyone is saying, “Lets Progress,
Let’s reach at the highest almighty’s safest place.”
I am begging, so “Please return!”
Chills down my spine are shivering much.
Alas! Nobody listens to a twelve year old; we go forward to the sanctum sanctorum so.
Boom, Thud, Thunderclap!!!
Neighing horses halt at the very next step,
Groans, shouts, a chilly squeal
Thunder & lightning turning its wheels.
“Daaaad! Please lets go back!”
He holds me strong & actions the horse to take further steps,
The silver in the sky is threatening us: “DO NOT GO FORWARD & RETURN!”
The angels of rain have turned to the dark side, nature has become our true adversary. Alright!
Deluge has struck & the frenzy of water is pulsating through.
Vicious despair & misery has replaced the beautiful.
Oh! How badly I wish untrue to my déjà vu.
My dad’s eyes are welled up and afraid.
My mother is clenching my brother so close, like he’s a prey talon-ed to its appendage.
Grotesque & brutal the nature has turned,
Gory, horrific-the tables have turned.
The bugle of avenge by nature has been rung, the mere mortals’ reality song has been sung.
Screams are resonating in the air, just a little while ago it was ‘Om Namah Shivay’ chanting on loop here & there.
Boom, Thud, Thunderclap!!!
The breast of thy heaven has been ripped to shreds.
All around the valley, I can see through my eyes!
On my dad’s shoulders, I am raised to have a fair look of the ghastly sights.
I am crying profusely on my father’s back.
Our human chain is breaking at the helm of water’s wrath.
Boom, Thud, Thunderclap!!!
I faint!
I woke up in a camp,
I don’t know how many days late,
I saw my family beside me, my brother was in a slumber, maybe.
The deluge had stopped & so had everybody.
The silence, was echoing the wails freely,
Every now and then someone was being rescued,
But when this Armageddon would stop nobody knew.
After 18 long years of quietude, the slumber continues,
I realize, we were the un/lucky ones,
Who got saved,
Who are reliving this ghastly memory again & again.
They say time heals all wounds,
But this one is etched in memory forever & crude.
And so, all these years later…
I finally write.