How Many Candles (In Remembrance Of Madhumita Shukla - Poet) Poem by Pratip Sen Gupta

How many candles
Did they light for you
My friend
How many bouquets
How many teddy bears

Did children
Or their parents
Did teenage school kids
Did celebrities
Did activists
Hold vigils in your memory

Did they know that you
Once lived
Did they know you were killed

It was a lonely death
But perhaps it was a lonely life

No one noticed
For it was not your tragedy
That you died
It was your tragedy
That you were a poet

Rest in silence
My friend
The media will leave you alone
As they cover your killer

But then who killed you
When did your spirit die

To you my friend
I raise a toast
And I am the only one

Cheers
From one dead poet
To another

Pratip
25 October 2007