Album

You would feel like smiling at this picture.

It is Sakina’s nine months pregnant tummy.

Do you see Anvar’s foot bulging out?

Sun plants a kiss on it.

He was in a hurry

To come to this world.

He was so naughty

Even after getting out of the womb.

This is his picture in his birth suit.

He smiles shyly, covering his tiny prick

With both the hands.

This is me, Sakina and him together.

My brother took this photograph.

He is in his mom’s hands and tries to snatch the camera.

This is him crying adamantly.

Gosh! He doesn’t let us sleep some nights.

I used think that one shouldn’t have marriage and children.

This picture shows him eating porridge.

With the porridge spread on his face,

This could make anyone laugh.

Nothing, not even dirt, can make

a child’s face less cute.

We took this picture when he was four.

Sakina made him look stylish

With goggles and a hat.

This shows me and Sakina

kissing on his cheeks

On his birthday.

He is a small flower between two leaves,

That gazes at the dawn.

See how happy he is.

This picture is of him

with his classmates.

He is the third one from right,

in the upper row.

This is him with his friends.

It was taken when his friends paid a visit here

On a holyday.

This picture was taken

When we went for a trip.

He kisses me for keeping my word.

This closeup picture is of my

Six year old son lying there

Shot dead.

Do you see those lips?

..As if he wanted to say something.

This is corpses of small children

scattered on the ground.

His is fourth from the left..

This is his mom screaming,

hugging his body.

This picture is me weeping

as I walk to the cemetery,

with him in my hands.

You can close the album now.

There was a smile

between me and Sakina.

Now we are just two leaves

leaning on each other

In the memory of the fallen flower.

Every house here

has an album of a dead child.

A garden, of a helpless smile.

(A rough translation of my recent poem by my friend Hari Krishnan ).