Debris
— After a school collapsed
It wasn’t just bricks.
Not just beams and plaster.
It was a hundred years —
a hundred years of chalk dust,
dreams with school bells,
and mothers packing bread
with red chilies and trust
in the shape of a folded napkin.
The roof came down.
And when it did,
it took a school,
a child,
a blackboard.
It took the lesson plans
and made them tombstones.
The clock — it froze.
The cameras didn’t.
The men in coats came.
They bent their knees,
not to weep,
but to find a good angle,
like they were choosing
a graveyard by camera lens.
The media opened their jars —
tears on tap,
and guilt washed clean
in holy water ratings.
A boy —
yesterday,
he was reciting tables.
Today,
his fingers stick out of the rubble
like a question
no one will answer.
No one asks
why the roof cracked.
Why pages turned to ash.
Why chalk wrote
with blood now.
The TV screams:
"Nehru did it!"
And while they argue over names,
they build another wall
between god and god.
Democracy —
it holds a press meet
on its own stiffened body.
No,
the wombs don’t grow futures now.
They grow contracts —
with clauses and cement.
Children cry —
and the numbers rise.
Each scream is a cell
in a spreadsheet.
Each name,
a row with a serial number.
This country?
You won’t find it on a map.
It doesn’t ping on radar.
It’s the hush
in a poor man’s eyes at night —
the soft blink
of a star long dead.
-
Author:
Deepak Vohra (
Offline) - Published: July 27th, 2025 02:24
- Category: Surrealist
- Views: 6
- Users favorite of this poem: sorenbarrett, Poetic Licence
Offline)
Comments4
A strong message in this poem that directly and powerfully makes its point about society and what it values. Reflection is called for and a reassessment of what is important to people and how they sell their future and past for a bowl of porridge. Well written and a fave
A wonderful write of what we percieve to be important and valuable in life, some re-evaluating needs to be done, nicely expressed and written
BRAVO
Excellent write
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