The surge of the second wave of the pandemic has been likened to the Mahabharata of a misstep, in this poem, by Krish, exclusively for Different Truths.

In India, there is blowing,
The Perfect Storm of equal misery

A Mahabharata of epic carnage

And like the battlefield Kurukshetra of the Mahabharata
The microbe’s rampage are the new arrows of battle

Across India, the arrows of the microbe’s unceasing quiver struck
leaving heaps of dead so many that a daisy chain of souls
Are now gathered for a journey of ascension to the stars

the funeral pyres of hot pure orange 
engulf the morning sunrise and evening sunset’s splendour

Lifeless brown tanks of oxygen emptied
Couldn’t save the lifeless brown corpses emptied of oxygen

The burning diseased bodies leave scores of epitaphs 
from unknown ashes of bodies and ringed firewood as scarred rectangles
The perfect geometry of death

At the funeral ground,
Neither a priest, nor a family, neither a bouquet nor a wreath
Neither a lament, nor a loving goodbye to liniment the dispatched soul
the unknown battlefield dead
of this new Kurukshetra
arise like the armies of the dead in the ancient Mahabharata.

The ash ground of the burning dead, like Shiva’s forehead
Shiva, the sole denizen, the resident of the house of the dead

the long lines of people waiting to die,
waiting for Yama or the man on the black bull to lasso their soul
 
There is neither Dharma in this Kurukshetra, 
Nor an Arjuna, neither a mace nor a charioteer
the Krishna who imparted ancient wisdom
Went unheeded by the powers that be, 
And the wrong misstep, the ensuing karma, the whirlwind reaps of
the folly of politics and schemers
gave birth to the unceasing funeral pyres of the dead

It is the perfect storm of the misstep.

Visual by Different Truths

Krish Raghuram

Krish Raghuram writes prose and poetry, and his primary focus in writing stems from an interest in history, science and at times, current events. He cites his grandmother and mother as primary influences for his love for writing. While writing is always in the background, he likes to travel by road in a rental car in the various countries he visits, and cites Africa as possessing the most beautiful countryside.