“Hindu, Muslim sons fight over woman’s last rites”

—Dec 8, 2022, The Times of India

To die or not to die?

That’s the question she must have asked

had she known what was to follow 

the muezzin’s voice and the temple bells

can’t intrude into her cold bed of silence

The monument of faith topples with death!

What God can a dead body embody?

She is just a mound of flesh now

Her body is a country

divide it into two parts

as you did decades ago

drawing the borders with blood.

Cremate one and bury the other!