I struggled to walk past the hundreds sleeping on footpath on a January night,
but there was a deadline.
They died crying for help, in the fields of western Uttar Pradesh
but I had a deadline to meet.
I have heard that hundreds of kids died in a school in Peshawar,
but I could not forget my deadline.
Deadline, deadline, deadline !
It superseded all my desires to mourn over the killings in Kashmir and Palestine.
I had to cover the brutal rape of a pregnant tribal woman in Chattisgarh,
I couldn’t do more than to meet my deadline.
My ear echo with sounds of bombings by NATO forces,
but don’t you know that I have a deadline?
ISIS beheaded a journalist in Syria,
I am sure the slain must be chasing his deadline too, just like me.
Someday something has to supersede my deadline,
probably death of my life engrossed in deadline,
then I will mourn in deep silence forever,
for the kids of Palestine, the Muslim women of Gujarat, the children killed by the NATO forces,
and the naked existence of ISIS.
Asad Ashraf
asadashrafblog 