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Earthquake

 By Rajababu

I receive an E-Mail of 8.24 kb, an HTML file,
Turn that HTML off, I think of my IT guy and smile,
On activation, the smile fades away,
My Celeron begins to sway,
A depiction of the Richter intensities,
In the various cities,
At 5.4, my head begins to reel,
At 6.5 (Taiwan), my heart begins to feel,
Palpitations, which shudder the screen,
At 7.9 (Bhuj), a vertigo changes my 'has' to 'has been',
I close the file and close my eye,
As I empathise that moment, I sigh,
How traumatic, how unnecessary,
What a sickening fall, what a flurry.

Children marching past the tricolor,
Clarity of mind, moments later, there's a blur,
The ground gives way, the buildings crash,
Anihilations aplenty, mayhem in a flash,
Hours later, the channels pick it clean,
They start flashing on the screens-Bachau 'has been',
Mumbai was not spared, buildings heaved,
Within, neighbours consoling those bereaved,
Many there were who lost their kith and kin,
They wondered why it was so-Some eternal sin,
Of their past lives, why oh why,
Did India have to grieve, have to cry.

Drawn as they were by an unsevered umbilical thread,
You see the Swiss, the Yankees, searching for the dead,
The world is with India in this moment of pain,
While Rudra has done his Tandaav Nritya- yet once again.

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