The Question Poem by Prabir Gayen

‎ The Question
‎
‎ Prabir Kumar Gayen
‎
‎Should a Teacher arrive
‎to whisper tender Love
‎while the house of humanity burns?
‎Should he offer
‎only lullabies of belonging,
‎calm folded in soft syllables,
‎or carry the fire of discernment
‎against corrosive wills
‎that eat the marrow of conscience?
‎
‎Should a Poet sing
‎only of universal brotherhood
‎while brothers are reduced to ash
‎by those who have forgotten
‎what brotherhood means?
‎
‎Should Compassion chant its mantras
‎while innocence is schooled in cruelty,
‎while minds are engineered
‎to mistake slaughter for virtue,
‎and paradise is mis-sold
‎as a currency of obedience
‎where desire is weaponised
‎and conscience is silenced?
‎
‎Should the Gita blaze again,
‎not with blood,
‎but with revolutionary knowledge,
‎to shatter the lie
‎that murder opens heaven,
‎that death of the other
‎earns celestial reward,
‎that bodies are prizes
‎for disciplined hands of darkness?
‎
‎Should a Teacher come
‎with the Chakra of Awareness,
‎not to sever flesh,
‎but to cut through delusion,
‎to dismantle creeds
‎born of ignorance, greed, and craving,
‎and restore ancient truth
‎with living meaning:
‎
‎Swadharme nidhanam śreyaḥ,
‎paradharmo bhayāvahaḥ.
‎
‎Rise, O Modern Arjuna,
‎not to hate,
‎but to refuse false dharma;
‎not to destroy lives,
‎but to disarm lies
‎whose agents move
‎as shadows of a deeper night.
‎
‎I ask—and will ask again,
‎until the answer dawns:
‎Is love still love
‎when it refuses
‎to protect the living?
‎
‎Is God(Sectarian) a distant landlord
‎trading gardens of pleasure
‎for professional violence,
‎or the silent fire of conscience
‎burning patiently
‎in every human chest?
‎
‎If a scripture teaches
‎that paradise is purchased
‎with the blood of strangers,
‎is it divine revelation,
‎or sanctified madness
‎dressed in sacred grammar?
‎
‎O Arjuna of this age,
‎your battlefield is not Kurukshetra alone.
‎It is the classroom,
‎the sermon,
‎the screen,
‎the algorithm,
‎the silent consent of the good
‎where wrong knowledge is normalised
‎and killing is disguised as faith.
‎
‎You are not called
‎to despise a people.
‎You are called
‎to dismantle a lie.
‎You are not asked
‎to destroy bodies,
‎but to uproot doctrines
‎that manufacture corpses.
‎
‎Is meditation
‎to close the eyes
‎while hatred sharpens prayers?
‎
‎Can peace be chanted
‎while children are trained
‎to inherit cruelty
‎as sacred duty?
‎
‎No.
‎Even Buddha rose from silence
‎when ignorance endangered life.
‎Even Christ overturned tables
‎when holiness was traded.
‎Even Krishna lifted the wheel
‎when justice collapsed.
‎
‎Let no new religion
‎be born of rage.
‎Let no war
‎wear the mask of God.
‎
‎But let a new resolve arise,
‎a union of conscience
‎where the Gita speaks
‎with the Dhammapada,
‎the Bible breathes
‎with the Tao,
‎Japji sings
‎with the Upanishads,
‎not to glorify death,
‎but to deny murder
‎its theology.
‎
‎For the enemy is not flesh.
‎The enemy is the idea
‎that killing is sacred.
‎The enemy is the doctrine
‎that women are rewards,
‎that children are tools,
‎that heaven is a marketplace
‎for obedient butchers.
‎
‎Against this,
‎every religion must become a shield,
‎every mind a frontier,
‎every heart a witness.
‎Let revolution be disciplined,
‎ethical, awake.
‎
‎Let law rise with courage.
‎Let education burn
‎brighter than bombs.
‎Peace is not passivity.
‎Compassion is not surrender.
‎To protect life
‎is not violence.
‎It is duty.
‎
‎If a new scripture must be written,
‎let it declare:
‎No God rejoices in slaughter.
‎No heaven trades in blood.
‎No faith survives
‎by devouring humanity.
‎
‎Stand together,
‎not as one religion,
‎but as one human vow:
‎That no child will be taught
‎to die for a lie.
‎That no killer will be crowned holy.
‎That no silence
‎will excuse murder.
‎This is not a call to kill.
‎
‎This is a call
‎to end killing,
‎at its root,
‎in its theology,
‎in its prayer.
‎
‎And if humanity must fight,
‎let it fight darkness itself,
‎not the wounded carriers
‎of its infection.
‎
‎Let Krishna stand beside Lao Tzu,
‎Buddha beside Mahavira,
‎Christ beside Nanak.
‎Let Ram's bow sing
‎not conquest,
‎but protection.
‎Let unity rise
‎without boundary
‎to defend life
‎against doctrines of death.
‎
‎Let heaven be renamed,
‎not indulgence,
‎but clarity of conscience;
‎shared by Hindu and Christian,
‎Buddhist and Jew,
‎Zen and Sikh-
‎a courage that refuses lies,
‎a vigilance that guards the innocent,
‎a fire that burns falsehood
‎without burning the world.
‎
‎Let us be united
‎not by reward,
‎but by responsibility,
‎in the name of Dharma,
‎in the name of Life.
‎
‎@Prabir Gayen,
‎31/12/2025/7: 52 PM.
‎All rights reserved.
‎