When bullets fly about you at random
No point sticking out your head sinless
Risk getting shot right at the centre
The bullet being neutral and unable too
To judge who to hit and who not to
Amidst a throng of the guilty and the guiltless
Hits the good and the bad all too alike
As it does the important and the insignificant
Regardless of any distinction plausible
If there were some to see the act of immolation
As do the viewers on a cinema screen put up
Worthwhile might the sacrifice be
Might a moral lesson be conveyed
Next morning your corpse might be found
Among thousands of others no less mangled
Cropped, shaven chin, even circumcised
Who would know you were not a Muslim
Victim of a massacre too indiscriminate?
Who would know you were not a Sikh who
With full knowledge of the consequences
Had walked into the face of a firing squad?
To prove good should triumph over evil
And God—no, not God; He was irrelevant.
Zulfiqar Parvez is Head of English at TanzimulUmmah International Tahfiz School.
