Like my first love, Delhi, burdened with stamina sapping humidity,

Challenging the limits of human endurance,

I, Me, Myself- whatever it is- my soul, my conscience,

Too feel a burden, niggling me for quite some time,

Even as I mull about the probable cause for this discomfort,

Something snaps within,

With great speed, I hurtle into the depths of an abyss,

There is a pall of smoke all around,

My eyes steadily lose their ability to see,

I struggle to breathe, my lungs giving way,

As if a hangman is tightening the noose around my neck,

(will I be hanged, for being a casual bystander???)

(or will I be spared, at least this time???)

Amid all this, I discern a shroud- dirty, in tatters,

Floating in the air, within touching distance,

Challenging me to see what lies beneath it,

With immense effort, I take my hand forward,

But just as my fingertips sense the traction of the cloth,

My courage crumbles like a sandcastle,

My fear gets the better of me, my palms cold & wet,

Sweat gushes on my brow, like a fast-flowing mountain stream,

My heart throbs insanely,

Repulsed, my mind goes into a tailspin,

I imagine, (or are they real),

Diabolical tombstones from the past rushing towards me,

(each engraved with a name, unknown to me, yet, at some level, my own),

At an unsettling speed, I start running, fearing a crash,

Which might break through the bottom of the abyss,

Taking me to the other side,

Mercifully, that does not happen,

And they come- all of them- to a stop,

(One, two, three and many more),

Just where I stand, (and where else),

Beside a newly erected tombstone,

Or rather, two tombstones,

If we were to consider the blindfolded lady,

Molested, disrobed, mocked,

Interred, probably forever,

With her mangled scales of justice,

Monuments to our collective shame,

Echoing with a plaintive cry for justice,

From the forgotten pages of history,

And stifled sobs of those, who, if we still turn a blind eye,

May become forgotten footnotes, in the times to come,

If the list, unfettered, is allowed to get longer and longer,

And if we, The People, fail to achieve freedom from fear…