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A Symphony of Memory and Change
“Where is Abba? Ammi”
Under the scotching heat,
She roams through jagged, crumbling alleys
Waiting for him to come.
She has waited for centuries-
Or so it feels.
She wavers, wanders, pleads, whispering in the void beside the gutter.
They sleep beneath the blackened shack,
huddled everyday
in biting cold,
drenching rain and
blistering heat with no mercy.
They cook on the dusty roadside,
surviving on scrapes and leftovers.
Where shall they go?
To the home that no longer exists,
to a present that has no alternative reality.
They are brought here to create propaganda,
and now they are displaced, homeless and uprooted.
“Where is Abba? Ammi”
The silence swifts by her trembling, weathered face,
etched with years of suffering.
She seems lost- adrift in a world that doesn’t care.
No one cares. No one ever does.
We are the unseen, the unheard.
Her voice choked by promises.
She doesn’t know where he is.
Alive, or gone forever?
Where shall she go?
Whom should she ask for entity?
What can she do?
Crises reflects in innocent faces.
A blister burns her foot.
She scavenges through garbage with her little ones,
searching from something- anything-
to keep them alive.
An old, crackled voice whispers from underneath the rag:
“Shahida?”
For a moment, she thinks of killing her-
one less mouth to fed.
We are all merciless
when it comes to our own survival.
Tears roll down her cheeks.
Whom to kill?
We are already dead.
Every night she stands still,
facing the hyenas,
that hunger for the flesh of women
She has already lost one-
they took her away, ate her alive;
only the remains were buried.
she cannot bear any more.
She wants her son to grow,
to protect them,
but then she fears he will leave too.
Generation after generation,
life is trapped in the vicious cycle of refugees.
Voices clash from a distant news broadcast,
faintly reaching her:
the bourgeois debate the chromosomes of Calcutta,
authorities tally votes.
People sing Vande Mataram
and fret over faith and ethnicity.
They demand proof of her existence,
threatening to cast her out if she cannot provide it.
They live on hope- a delayed despair.
Brought here with promises-
promises of safety, shelter, a better life.
Now those promises lay broken,
scattered like dry leaves in the wind.
What can she do?
She doesn’t even know what she will feed her little ones tomorrow.
“Ammi? when will Abba come?”
Her children look at her with trusting eyes,
unaware of the cruelty beyond the shack.
The world outside seems cruel and absurd.
People argue over borders, votes, religion,
while thousands sleep on the streets, unseen, unheard.
No one remembers them.
No one will.
She swallows her fear, her hunger, her despair,
and whispers prayers into the night.
“Allah… please keep us safe. Please bring him back.”
Through the noise of restless streets, shouting authorities,
and ceaseless fear of losing everything at once,
she hears the sound of Namaz: “Allah hu Akbar….”
A thread of hope wraps around her heart.
She whispers to her children, “Soon… soon.”
I am Gargi Hajra, an emerging poet and writer with a postgraduate degree in literature, drawn to the worlds of stories, films and research. I have also written for various magazines and online platforms, sharing my voice and reflections with a wider audience.
