The Burning Train At Godhra Poem by Dr. Yogesh Sharma

Floating slowly as an aimless cloud over Godhra,
Flying high over silent mills and sad helmets.
Suddenly a thirsty crowd descends, from nowhere,
Thirsty not for the water but for the blood,
With fierce dagger, oil canes and what not.

A host of humans burnt alive
And writhing with unendurable pain.
In the train, beside seats, beside wash cabins,
Crying and burning alive,
Roasted corpses scattered everywhere.

Hundreds were trembling and weeping,
Over their dear and dead ones’ corpses,
Otherwise busy and humming housewives,
Beating breasts to cry out the pain,
On the charred remains of poor pilgrims.

Cameras, officials, police in fighting fatigue,
But out numbered and numbed by their screams.
Their burnt bones opened gold mines,
To secular hawks and I cried and cried,
Without any respite, for the pain it had brought.

I moved my pen to tear for poor souls,
Returning home from pilgrimage to Ayodhya
But became fuel to Jihadi hate,
A poet in me could cry and cry,
Gazing at the Burning Train at Godhra.


By,
DR. YOGESH SHARMA