Hemant Bawankar
☆ What difference does it make? ☆ Hemant Bawankar ☆
(Poetry based on incident occurred on February 28, 2026, a missile strike destroyed the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, killing 100+ people, most of them schoolgirls.)
Shshsh…shsh
Quiet… quiet…
Here sleep
more than a hundred small girls
who had set out to study.
They went to study…
but could’nt return
and
were put to sleep
in those small graves
in a terrifying graveyard…
From this,
the world’s remaining small girls
their relatives
and
humans unworthy of being called humans…
What difference does it make?
Those innocent girls
didn’t even know that…
What is a country?
What is a border?
What is religion?
What is race?
What is a friendly country?
and
What is an enemy country?
They believed that
the sun is one
the moon is one
and
this earth belongs to all.
Their entire world
started from home
and ended at school.
After eating-drinking, reading-writing
would get lost in parents’ embrace.
Then,
to whoever targeted
and fired a missile on their school…
What difference does it make?
We have become addicted
to watching wars on TV
like video games…
In this game of destruction
now we don’t see
schools and hospitals
cities anndd buildings
turning into ruins.
Luxurious peaceful lavish lives
getting buried
cities ruined
and
beautiful gardens
getting destroyed.
Now… children, men-women and elders
however, they live or die,
What difference does it make?
We had much to learn
Then what did we learn?
From rulers becoming dictators…
From Nagasaki’s atomic explosion…
From torture camps…
From gas chambers…
From gas tragedy…
From shadow of terror…
From poison of religious fanaticism…
From COVID pandemic…
From wars and massacres…
Now, to the hopeless maniacs…
What difference does it make?
The peace award – seeker of future
is perhaps sleeping somewhere…
Most people have turned indifferent
and rulers have gone mad…
It is necessary to remind them, as per poet Habib Jalib* —
The person who was seated on the throne here before you
He too had the same conviction of being God himself.
Explaining to them is impossible,
What difference does it make?
The flame of hope
has not been extinguished…
It wasn’t said without reason in Atharvaveda **.
“Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”
“The whole world is one family”.
Therefore,
my words
are words without borders
which wherever they reach
reach carrying message of humanity
reach carrying message of peace.
Now don’t say that— from this
What difference does it make?
Difference does matter,
from message of peace and humanity…
Difference does matter…
Difference surely matters!
* Habib Jalib – A Pakistani Shayar and his shayari
तुम से पहले वो जो इक शख़्स यहाँ तख़्त-नशीं था
उस को भी अपने ख़ुदा होने पे इतना ही यक़ीं था*
“Tum se pehle wo jo ik shakhs yahan takht-nashin tha,
Us ko bhi apne khuda hone pe itna hi yaqin tha.”
** Atharvaveda – The Atharvaveda is the fourth Veda among the four Vedas of Hinduism (Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, and Atharvaveda)
© Hemant Bawankar
Pune, Maharashtra. India
