Remembering the Rough

[Settled in Mumbai, the 2018 flood could not be seen by my 10 year old self more than what the television media and the endless hours my mother spent at call centers cooperating and coordinating actions, resources and requests between the government, volunteers and the crowd could show. I would like to appreciate ‘2018’ film by Joby Anthony to project the film through the eyes of many who I can never reach. Thankful to every power which taught me love crosses calmities when it reaches home. With love - Nivedita]

It looked beautiful in the screen when the dam opened.

When could we see water flow like milk like it did

Why did no one tell me, why didn’t i know

It was the same water which was to drown too many house

When did those who they regarded useless

Take up their hands and legs and soul

And did everything for everyone

More than anyone could wish and need for

What might have flashed through the 5 year olds eyes

When they saw their protectors, their parents cry,

When they saw water and despair intermix

What could ever stop their cries

What about the kids that never returned

To the address on their school cards

What about their friends who they never saw

Ever again without knowing it was a goodbye

What to those young adults who heard the first cries

Who stepped into the water first, without any fears

Who promised their mothers they’ll be back at heros

Who saved many to lose themselves first

What to the men, to the old, to the young

To the ladies, poor and rich, to the sick and well

To the kind and weird and unkind 

Did the rain say?

Did it just pour and drown and kill

And leave only questions to the alive

Where did their happy ones go

Where are the hopeful smiles?

Rocks where there were homes

Orphans where there were families

Nightmares where there were stories

Legancy printed itself with the water which didnt seep through

What about them who were too away

And phonecalls were the only way

But the reciever was no longer one call away

The phones unattended didnt answer, did they?

What about them who wondered why

We lived in their school and why

We had fear under smiles and why

Everyone stared at the sky

The next morning no one knew or cared

Which ‘breed’ of humanity lifted their weight

Gave them the food, the shelter and hope

Gave them enough to live for

The next morning no one left the phones

Still dialling and ringing and attending

To new and the old, to the lost and the found

And to cry to the miscalls of the unalive

Was this the end? Or the begining?

Or beginning of the end

Sleepless nights, hopeless cries

Turns out, all of humanity is very alike