Where The Gods Don't Grieve

A man from a different land on vacation sips his tea,

unaware his paradise is a battlefield —

flesh and blood for sale,

all in the name of politics

and gods who’ve never cared

One minute, singing Rafi & Lata to the setting sun;

the next minute, he is dead,

shot for the sin of being the wrong faith,

in the wrong place, at the wrong time

A woman wails,

but her grief is nothing new

It’s the sound of a history written

in blood, in borders, in beliefs

that never belonged to the people

who die in them

This valley?

It’s not paradise,

it’s a pawn

A playground for politicians,

who trade Hindus for Muslims & Muslims for votes

The blood?

The price tag of an exotic vacation

The cost of a war

that never ends

because it’s not about winning,

it’s about controlling the narrative for the next assembly election

So when the child looks up,

when the woman pleads,

remember:

the sin wasn’t being where you shouldn’t —

it was assuming this country ever had safe spaces

for names it couldn’t pronounce,

for gods it didn’t pray to

Because here,

the only religion that matters

is relevance —

and the only god they bow to

is power dressed as patriotism,

with a tricolour in one hand

and a trigger in the other

And if you still think

this is about religion —

congratulations

The propaganda worked