On the 30th Anniversary of Bhopal Gas Tragedy
Dr. Chandra Shekhar Sharma
Associate Professor and Head
Department of English
CSIT, Durg
It was dark, then for some people
It’s dark today even for those people
In your heavenly adobe tonight
Anderson!
Who will you first meet?
Christ or those wounded souls?
The grievous soul of that innocent child,
With stony-eyes open wide
Whose black-and-white half-buried head’s photograph
Shook the world, tore hearts apart
Anderson!
Would you find time after your heavenly supper?
To find this child and say sorry even in mutter?
Thirty summers and thirty winters have bygone
You flew high and left these crying souls forlorn.
That dark night those who slept
Forever remained slept
Those who ran to escape death,
They died every moment a hundred deaths
Anderson!
Can you talk of the pain of death?
Tonight, can you dare to hold your breath?
This night shall stand in history tall
Shall be a symbol of greed & rise & fall
This night shall fill the cups with questions
Shall wail over the cost of developments
Anderson!
Would you celebrate anniversary of your escape from streets?
Or will dare redo you balance sheets?
The moon did not know that growth crawls on risks
The wind unaware of airy poisonous rills
No one knew in those dirty shanties
No one dreamt of such mass carnage
More the corpses lesser carriage
Anderson!
Tonight! In your post-supper stroll
Would you contemplate
The last painful suppers in those shanties?
Tonight Anderson, tonight!
Would your soul cry for millions of untimely adieu?
Or would rejoice with friendly souls for a bad patch gone?
Would you remorse for running away from responsibilities?
Or would you feel nostalgic about your beautiful cottage, wife & wine?
Would you celebrate your influences?
Or would give a thought to disabled ones you created?
Tonight Anderson, tonight!
You must cry in repentance
Which you never did in your life time.