***************************************
Jyothi
A
bus
came by, they
hesitated but
got inside
anyway.
Sparkles in eyes, lightness in steps, just a
boy and girl
on the way back from a movie.
Interrupted.
A nasty comment by one who
lured them inside
with a singsong solicitation
whistle. Violation
became vicious. Fueled by
entitled
rage. Hours later, a nation found its
guts were
pulled off. Shocked nation lay by
roadside,
bloodied and naked in the cold dark.
Cuts, bites,
wounds for all to feel. But no one
offered to
cover even as it agonized for help,
shivering,
bleeding, throbbing. Even one tear
of the young
girl who stood up for the right to
be herself has
more worth than all that was
ever fathomed and will be - that almost all
felt this later and
their hearts hushed as she lay
dying maybe the realistic hope that there is for
this restless nation, so young,
so old, so much
vigor and so resigned, now
forever haunted by
the headline“A large number of Police Vans
and
BSF followed the victim as her body was
taken for
cremation.” When one,
just one cop
or a morsel of respect in any of
the 6 men could
have saved the night when a girl
going home from
a movie bravely battled beastliness
in a quietly
plying bus in the heart of
a city in a free nation.
*****
January 2013
