Thursday, October 1, 2015

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.






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