The Bomb

Uncle Abdul*,
said a little girl,
“I want a reason to be proud of my country”,
and so we made the Bomb.

Vajpayeeji,
said a party worker,
“I need to prove my mardangi (manhood)”,
and so we made the Bomb.

“They are killing us in our mothers’ womb”,
said a dark skinned tribal from Jadugoda.
“You are not are target”, said Iyenagar**
“The Chinese borders have come to close”.

“My dear Indian brothers and sisters,
you don’t want to live to feel your skin melt,
or search for your parents bones among rubble and ashes”
said a survivor from Hiroshima.
But you look, to find 30,000 bombs now lying around.

“So India has gone nuclear”,
inquired Saint Peter ***
yeah, said the rabbit,
now just watch the fission.



This poem was written after I watched the documentary ‘War and Peace” by Anand Patwardhan. The poem is pertinent as we inch towards 6th and 8th August, Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day. A time when we need to renew the discussion and debate about nuclear weapons and how their very presence is endangering our planet, and I dread to think about the consequences should they be used a second time.

* Abdul Kalam, the President of India.
** Iyenagar is a prominent Indian nuclear scientist
*** Saint Peter is a Catholic saint who is mythically believed to be the gatekeeper of heaven

-written on-
4th August ‘05
12.45 p.m