The Loss of Akhlaq

A man was ruthlessly lynched, in Dadri, by a barbaric mob, over rumours of having consumed beef. The holes, in the threadbare fabric of Democracy, gape shamelessly at us. Akhlaq, which means virtue, morality, good conduct and manners, is with us no more. Words, however deeply felt, fail to commiserate.

The Loss of Akhlaq

Why are things so broken,

Lives so cluttered,

insides so shaken

Souls so embittered

when now

There’s so much knowledge,

Such awareness

Pursuit of God

And propriety of goodness?

Why are acts so clueless

Of their purpose or worth

Why blood’s a witness

To guile and mirth when

There’s so much more freedom

More expression

More clarity

And far less suppression?

When all the tools

And ingredients

Keep growing to better

Genetic pools?

Weren’t things nicer when

There was less of everything

Less words that spread

Lesser readers and the read

Less knowledge

Less thought

Lesser power

Of the writ and the wrought?

Weren’t things better when

People

Knew less

Thought less

Wanted less

And sought less?

perhaps yes

When food for the stomach

Did not ulcers bind

When rewards of the till

Were not burdens of the mind.

Between then and now

Have we grown?

Have we reaped

What we have sown?

Why Ramraj didn’t last

If it was perfect?

Why’d faith go aghast

and not the way of the Prophet;

the path of love

and tolerance and heed

not that of spite

and vile and greed.

We evolve

We maintain

That learning

Helps regain

Balance and peace

But what worth is knowledge

That doesn’t seep

Into the ground

Into the roots

flooding the innards

Of religious shoots?

It’s a wild world out there

that always holds a seed

Of a messiah now and then

Is what we always need

As the ivy binds us tight

Of poisonous caste and creed

A new one will come

And show another way

And yet more blood will flow

In the name of Faith to stay.