Debarati’s poem, featured in Different Truths, is a powerful reflection on a city’s struggle for justice, memorialising a tragic event and its unfulfilled promise of closure.

Solemn whispers
from parched lips
haunt a city’s sleep.
Dingy walls still echo
the syllables of justice,
vandalised—
then whitewashed in the aftermath of renovation.
 
A forgotten soldier
waits for the clarion call
as my city drowns in oblivion.
A mother lights a lamp
on a cracked sill,
watching shadows stretch like unanswered prayers 
 
Another year rolls by
Another file gathers dust
Eagles cut across the grey sky’s bosom,
prey clutched in their beaks.
 
The sun rises
on blood-stained roofs,
on forgotten promises,
on shoulders wrought with the burden of murderous hands
 
Rainwater fills the gutters
of a city that once claimed the night.
And I write—
not to remember—
but because forgetting
is a luxury
we cannot afford.

Note: On August 9, 2025, we mark a year since the gruesome Tilottama incident that shook the nation. This poem is a tribute to the soul who still waits for justice.

Picture design by Anumita Roy

Debarati Sen

Debarati Sen, an award-winning poet from Kolkata, published two solo poetry collections and contributed to more than 10 anthologies. She has recently made it to the top 50 poets in the NaPoWriMo 2023 writing challenge, and her poem, ‘Maple Dreams’, has been selected for the Yearbook 2022 to be published by Hawakal Publishers. Her haiku have been published in Haikuniverse, Five Fleas, Scarlet Dragonfly Journal, Suspect Device, Pan Haiku Review, and the Horror Senryu journal.