Who Keeps The Tally Poem by Gagan Khurana

Little me, five years old (1994) ,
Pointing at my own shadow,
'Why does it follow me everywhere? '

Father said,
'Because light moves straight,
and your body stands in its way.'

Me: 'But why straight only? '

Father: 'Due to Fermat's principle,
which states that in a homogeneous, isotropic medium,
the refractive index is the same everywhere,
and this is universally applicable.'

Me: 'Universal.'

Father: 'Yes. God's creation.'

---

Ten-year-old me (1999) ,
Sitting in civics class,
Toes still searching for the floor,
Kargil war fresh in the news.

I raised my hand and asked,
'Why do soldiers fight, Ma'am? '

She said,
'To defend the nation's sovereignty.'

Me: 'But is killing moral,
when civilians and soldiers both suffer,
letters arrive without voices,
uniforms return without bodies? '

She said,
'Soldiers follow their duties.'

I asked softly,
'If duty makes it moral,
who decides it? '

She said,
'The majority agrees; this is right.'

I looked around the class,
many heads nodding.

I asked,
'But what if the majority is wrong? '

She hesitated, then said,
'Morals come from our beliefs.'

I asked, 'Beliefs in what? '

She lowered her voice and said,
'God.'

The bell rang,
but the questions stayed.

---

Twenty year old me (2009) ,
Sitting in the Gurudwara complex,
Watching people bow and offer money,
The world reeling from recession.

I sat near the Giani ji and asked,
'Why do we need these rituals, these outer symbols?
If the soul is free, why bind the body? '

He said,
'It is for discipline.
To preserve the identity given by the Gurus.'

Me: 'But if God is formless, 'Nirankar',
why are we so obsessed with form?
If religion is about love,
why does it divide men into 'Us' and 'Them'? '

He said,
'The division is in man's ego, not the path.
We follow the Rehat to stay pure.'

I asked softly,
'If the code makes us pure,
why are religious hearts still full of greed?
If we must follow without questioning,
are we seekers or just servants? '

He frowned then said,
'It is the Hukam. The Cosmic Order.'

I asked, 'Order of whom? '

He closed his eyes and said,
'Waheguru. God.'

---

Thirty six years old me (2026) ,

Driving home alone,
Dashboard clock 02: 17 AM,
Resting beside me an empty 18 year old Macallan bottle,
Now a paperweight holding down a note: -

'I am writing this from the airport,
I won't be coming back,
The house keys are on the kitchen,
My lawyer will send the papers next week.

Good Bye Gagan,
Your no longer wife.'

Navigation screen ahead
still showing +892% on inverse ETF.

BTCUSDT: Long 15.6 BTC @ $78,157
ETHUSDT: Closed Long 173.33 ETH @ $2301

A cascade of green notifications.

I was perfectly long on crypto,
but catastrophically short on 'We.'

I protected the capital from the market, but left my soul naked to the storm.

I won the race, but lost the person I ran for.

I read every chart but missed every change in her voice.

I trusted that what was mine would remain,
until it was delisted without my consent.

I asked the night,

Who keeps this tally?
Who determines the exact exchange rate between a million dollars and a broken heart?

Who calculates the ROI?

Who insists that my highest peak
be built squarely on her departure?

I looked up at the starless night
through my car sunroof

No Papaji to guide the way,
No Teacher to warn me,
No Giani ji to offer a shabad of comfort.

I closed my tired eyes and said: -

'There must be one sponsor
to this whole affair,

One invisible hand
that pays for both the miracle and the mess,

Who funds both the feast and the famine,

My bull runs, my bear market,
my apex and my abyss, all fully funded by the God.'

---

With that thought I closed my tired eyes.
In that half second of surrender,
the road made its move.

The road curved at 02: 31 AM.
I did not turn the wheel.

140 kilometers of momentum
met the concrete barrier
in a single, indifferent second.
The brutal collision lasted less than a breath, Physics did the rest.

The bonnet folded like her goodbye letter.
The seatbelt locked, did its job violently.
Three ribs on the left and four on the right
snapped immediately.
All broken glasses found my face.
My blood had already been leaving
through every exit the collision had opened.
The steering column entered my chest three inches. Three inches,
and the lungs stopped
their faithful expanding
and contracting.

My heart, that stubborn bull,
ran its last numbers.

My conscious chose her face
for the last time.

But the question still returned,

Who kept this tally?

The night had no answer,
No God to blame this time,
No more infinite regression theory,
Just a man who lost in life,
And the question outlived the man,
the question outlived the man.