DEDICATED TO :
GLADYS AND ESTHER STAINES,
AND PARENTS OF HEMALATHA, GAYATHRI AND KOKILA

IN MEMORY OF 
GRAHAM STUART STAINES,  PHILIP AND TIMOTHY,
HEMLATHA, GAYATHRI AND KOKILA
AND ALL  THE OTHER INNOCENT VICTIMS 

Who will cry for them?
Who will call their names?

No President or Prime Minister,
Not even a compatriot.
Only a brother and sister
And parents stricken dumb
Will moan and lament
At every morn and nightfall.

So many hopes set ablaze!
Who will comfort the grieving friends and kin?

Shall we ask them?:
Banish the visions of beauty and youth
Blight the memories of chatter and laughter
Of your charred sons and daughters.

What people are we?
What leaders ours!
What religion this?

Look within, Mother India,
Listen to your sages’ wail:
The land of Gautam,  Ashoka,  and Gandhi,
Coiled in aberrant nationalism
Of hate and violence,
Division and Exclusion?

Wake up
Before this garden of myriad flowers
withers and vanishes.

You, the silent majority,
Whose side are you on?
If for Truth, Justice, and Honor,
Then stand up and SCREAM
And be counted among partisans
Of love, compassion, and freedom
Of a future for India's children,
Your children