'What is it that You Regret?'

Anger will swell, accusations and counter-accusations will animate TV debates. But what do the dead care?

- Huzaifa Pandit

“Kya gayamat hai Khatir kushta e shab bhi thay hum Subhu jab aayi tau mujrim hum hi gardanay gayay” —Khatir Gaznavi

(What tragedy is this Khatir the tentacles of tyrannous night were wound around us Yet as the morning dawned clear On the charge of being felons, the noose was tied around us)

News trickles in: a shooting, a ritual; no, an aberration, a calamity, disbelief, fear and the heart sinks. When the bulleted strings of the heart turn mute, no melody takes root—the cloudbursts of fear and grief wash away the highway of amnesic routine. The traffic of emotions is suspended as landslides of shock and spectacle come rushing down the cursed hills of blasted memories. Each visual is a splinter of horror, each letter in the live update a congealed knot in the chest, each statistic a relived scream, each conversation a secretive refusal to believe the inevitable—the condemnations will pour in, the tourists will pour out, the anger will swell, accusations and counter-accusations will animate the television decibels.

But what do the dead care now? What to the dead the fabled charms of Spring, what to them the riot of colours in the scenic valleys? What to them the eloquently worded condolences and the curated condemnations? What to them the hurried meetings, and what to them the meticulous vows of revenge? Coffins don’t permit debates to wake the dead, nor does fixing the real responsibility assuage the blind mouths of death. Someone in a foreign land has plastered this suggestion on his social media wall: If the living are indeed sorry for the untimely death of the dead, let them earmark land to create a memorial where the names of the dead will be etched on shiny granite, and bold inscriptions that detail their names, and a promise that the breezes of the nation pass on their respects.