Rajesh K. Jha
Rakbar is a strange name,
sounds a little comical, perhaps threatening and conspiratorial.
Not from Alwar, I am sure,
may be from Arabia or some other land.
Could you not think of some other name-
Vijay? Jagdish? Nirav?
No?
It deserves to be erased, then.
I hear you had seven children.
Awful burden on Mother Earth,
they will all howl when they see their mother and grandmother,
howling and rolling on the muddy earth,
as Rakbar did last night.
They must be silenced,
before the temple bell tolls and Aarti begins in the morning.
I am tired of grieving,
anger lies tethered in my bones
like an old, fallow cow in the courtyard,
looking with vacant eyes and
mooing- Rakbar, Rakbar, Rakbar.
Hyphen 
Please write a poem on the plight of cows too, their fore feet cut first to load them into the trucks like some stuffed cabbage, then beaten all over so that their flesh loosens, and finally killed slowly as blood is drained from their throats. I shall be waiting.
LikeLike