.
There’s Nothing to Regain
—on the terrorist attack on tourists
in Pahalgam town, in Kashmir, India
Their hapless screams over that vale
Had failed to cross celestial planes;
But found their way beneath my veins
To scratch my conscience, growing stale
With frozen tears and empathy.
The meadows reeked of gore, of death;
A single wisp of Satan’s breath
Could blow away humanity
In broad daylight. This life I lead,
This pen I hold, have lost again
To guns and evil hands of dread,
And thus, there’s nothing to regain.
.
.
Satyananda Sarangi is a young civil servant by profession. A graduate in electrical engineering from IGIT Sarang, his works have featured in the Society of Classical Poets, Shot Glass Journal, Snakeskin, WestWard Quarterly, Sparks of Calliope, Page & Spine, Glass: Facets of Poetry, The GreenSilk Journal and elsewhere. Currently, he resides in Odisha, India.
That is a powerful poem and reminder of the evil that men do. What a great two lines that captivated me:
“A single wisp of Satan’s breath
Could blow away humanity…”
Thank for your thoughtful comment. In the words of William Shakespeare, “The evil that men do lives after them…” is befitting for this massacre.
Regards
‘A single wisp of Satan’s breath
Could blow away humanity…’
Says it all. So much said in so few words, Satyananda.
Greetings, Paul Sir! This incident has shaken me to the core and it took me a while to come up with the poem. I felt I didn’t have the words.
Those five sons of satan, who infiltrated my country, widowed many women, destroyed families, and emptied the chests of countless parents, will not be spared—not by us, nor by the Almighty. My thanks goes to you, Satya, for writing this poem.
Absolutely. They can’t be spared at any cost.
Thank you so much for dropping by and reading the poem.
I am in awe in how you have channelled your grief into these memorable words. Words that convey love for your fellow man which is the very opposite of this unspeakable horror that has left most of us stunned and speechless. Your poem deserves to be widely read.
Greetings Maria!
The idea behind the poem was to convert the mounting hostility within and around me into something that would last beyond hate and terror. Though revolutions are bred by revolutionary art, but at times all we need is something that could turn the grief, the anger, the dejection and all similar attributes into more powerful and peaceful clarion calls.
Glad to have your comment here. Please share in your close circles, if it deserves to be widely read.
Some people just want to ruin everything, and those who want solutions have not yet come up with one.
This age belongs to those who can manoeuvre people and situations. Most people either have borrowed identities or suffer from what I call ” Identity Crisis Syndrome”. The leftover ones have no idea about the above two.
Satyananda, your gripping poem shows terrorism as a force enabling a few wicked men to destroy many lives and families, and also the peace of a nation, represented by you as a man and a poet. This is your third poem in five years on such a subject. The emotion is intense. You make me share it.
Thanks for your kind comment. I believe we, as poets, have a bigger responsibility to condemn all forms of terrorism. However, I find fellow poets who haven’t done so because they believe condemning the Israel attack on Palestine will give them wider acclaim.
I find a striking similarity between post modern free verse poets and liberal people who won’t condemn terrorism. People who feared staying disciplined in verse, broke away from formal poetry because they didn’t want to toil studying meter and prosody. These very people (post modern poets) will oppose rhyme and rhythm because they lack the required skills (formal poetry requires higher skills). This liberal attitude also stops them from condemn terrorism; they call it the terrorists’ way to attaining freedom. Sad but true.
This is an intriguing observation, Satyananda, connecting lack of discipline and unwillingness to develop skills to a lack of responsibility in fundamental human sympathies. You relate both to self-interest that is unjustly self-centered–and ultimately reaching the horror of considering terrorist hatred a way to gain freedom. This is a profound warning against selfishness and ill will! And as you say, it can be sad but true. I will join you against terrorism with some praise of unselfish heroism in the face of it. Thank you for these reflections!
The trouble now is that India is practically obliged to take retributive military actions against Pakistan, since the Indian population is enraged over the fact that this terrorist incident specifically singled out Hindus for murder. And because the Pakistani government is just as complicit in these terrorist attacks as the Serbian intelligence service was in the assassination of the Archduke in 1914, there is no other option.
The only way to deal with fanatical terrorists is the way that Trump is dealing with the Houthis. Those goat-herding mountaineers didn’t expect the daily ass-flaming that Trump is now dishing out to them.
I couldn’t have agreed more, Joseph Sir.
The Pakistan government needs to learn right lessons the hard way this time. Because those innocent people massacred in Pahalgam had nothing to do with violence, terror and hate. India will neither forget this loss nor forgive the cause.
Thanks a ton for the solidarity!
Thank you for the timely poem, Satyananda!
As a side note, I have to wonder if the Chinese Communist Party is behind the scenes and has encouraged, with money and other enticements, the Pakistani government and its proxies to carry out this terrorist attack as a way of making India look less like a viable trading partner alternative. The CCP is under a huge amount of pressure because of Trump’s tariffs, so I wouldn’t put it past them.
Evan, I think you are correct, not only in current economics, but also in the history of disputed territory between India and Pakistan. China supports Pakistan in order to gain control of as much territory as it can acquire for itself. The CCP is well-positioned to do as you say. Communist economies are not healthy ones anyway; the pain from tariffs adds a motive for terror by proxy.
I have been following this story. It’s one more atrocity in a litany of murderous rage that always seems to come from the same source. This can end in a truly frightening place. But I love what you’ve done in the poem; it’s not as much about the event itself as it is a reflection on what we try to achieve with poetry and how our intentions can seem futile in the face of the power of evil in the world.
President Trump and his team have brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Does anyone think the stupid Swedes will give him the Nobel?
Given the bizarrely impertinent letter sent by the US embassy in Sweden to their hosts, I imagine they wouldn’t be keen, even were it remotely appropriate …
Well, if the Swedes are stupid enough to want to maintain their anti-white DEI policies, I guess they also are stupid enough not to want to honor someone who may have just prevented a nuclear exchange.
But after all, they produced that glaring example of autistic imbecility, Greta Thunberg.