When Earth Shook

1993 saw a devastating earthquake in Maharashtra-Karnataka border that killed thousands. A newspaper photograph stirred my emotions- A silently wailing mother sat on the ruins of her home and in front of her, covered in a saree, was the dead body of her little son. The scene made tears flow from my eyes and the following verse from my pen.

When Earth Shook (30-12-1993)

She sits amongst the ruins made
By angry earth that danced the night;
And all that was a little home
(Blessed with bliss and boundless love)
Transformed into a heap of stones.
A battered door lies at her feet
Which once adored the walls of mud,
Crowned which were by a thatched roof-
And all these made not just a hut-
They made something she called her home.

Now she sits on the debris mound,
Once where stood her lovely home,
Filled with love and children’s play-
It was to her a paradise.
This paradise was just not made
In a moment by some magic spell,
But labour of a love filled heart,
Whose abode was the woman’s breast,
Facing many a torrent great,
Built the heaven on a piece of earth.
But, mighty nature’s fury came
And brought the sleeping folk a wrath.
It rocked the slumbering house in dark
And brought down every inch of it-
But, there’s more for which the woman weeps.

A few feet from the lady sad
I see an old sari piece,
From head to toe in which is clad
Something that every human eye
Can know among the ruins-
She took nine months to give it form
And many a year of nursing made
The baby into a child that played
And danced and made its mother proud,
Until nocturnal terrors came
And demanded from the child long sleep.
In a coffin made from the mother’s robe,
Here it lies- overpowered by death,
And she- a mother, a mortal too,
Can’t do a thing but weep on fate.

The quake, it shook a tender heart
And rocked and rocked till the heart
Like many a hope and many a dream
Crumbled into a heap- a mass
Of umpteen pieces broke.
Another house may come up there,
On the ruins where the mother sits,
Yet she a doleful life shall live;
For broken hearts and ruined homes
Have never known resurrection.