The Millennium takes a Big Toll

The millennium is to end,

So will be the case with the century,

Approaches as this day the zero hour;

Aah, this narrowing down,

Too eager to embrace the next,

The altar of nationalism too

looks for some selfless sacrifice,

The stale flowers of its glorious past,

Now need some offerings fresh.

 

On this 31^st of December,

alarmed is this mortal

for the countdown quickened,

The relatives few weep hoarsely,

For their loved ones,

Hijacked at a land distant;

Nationalism is thirsty,

It demands sacrifice,

A billion souls expecting a few hundred people

to assuage their boiling sense of nationhood,

But the pain of one’s own blood

is felt only by the closest kin.

Their pointing fingers,

And slogans for the release

of someone who challenged

our integrity, our pride,

They have to put self above the nation,

Jingoism is on a hypothetical plane,

The realty cuts us to our real size.

 

Wails, cries and noises,

Chorused a pleading, ‘Release’,

For a week whole,

Nationalism squirmed meanwhile,

Dreams of national glory postponed

to save the blood in real life,

Struck was a bargain

to save those who constitute the nation.

 

Three militants go free,

Hundreds died to capture whom,

Our soldiers look mute,

Bullets in their chests

though pain not much,

But then there are tears of joy

as the captives walk free,

Nationalism may feel the pinch,

But is it above the life of its ordinary citizens?

 

This millennium can seek comfort,

As another will follow figuratively,

Nationalism but must be feeling

a fishy death out of the pond,

Suffocated to death;

Vanish as the oxygen from the lungs,

The hawks may condemn them as selfish,

But is it a sin to cry to save one’s kin?

 

Earlier, some soldiers kidnapped for

the cause same were slaughtered,

Nobody then barked ‘Release’,

O my God,

A soldier taken guaranteed to die.

 

The hostages will return tonight,

Under pressure by the citizens,

The painful wails shut out

all nationalistic doors in the state,

And they will celebrate,

Some 160 families will rejoice extra,

But they should light candles also

for those who died in Kargil,

Everybody jingled when

with pride and love for the nation,

Certain as they were of safety,

Died meanwhile our soldiers icy deaths.

 

Yes, we will celebrate today

the approach of the millennium new;

And the great guffaws will echo around,

Hysterically rising towards

the zero hour approaching,

But at what cost?

A question difficult to answer.