You Killed an Answer
For Praveen Pagadala
"Greatness lies not in killing people but saving them."
Stephen Spillberg's Schindler's List
Yet, brothers we do not hate
you because you do not know
what you do. We have only love
to return with our another cheek
for your convenience; and knees
to bend on for God's sake to forgive.
It's just another day of shame for
us along many such milestones.
We take sackcloth and ashes for
these are our weapons against
what you have left for us on the
anvils of a great democracy.
Look deep into the meanings
the Cross drips with answers
and listen to the crystalline stone
of your own conscience, how our
blood of another Abel groans.
See! the widow stands alone
holding white flowers for your
hands that smell of the secret
answers you bind the nation's
three-lion emblem away from.
See! Our sleepless footprints
still wait for justice at the locked
doors of government's conscience
that is silent in the tricolour-fold
of the secular dignity.
See the young daughters! How
they wrap their father's absence
around the future of broken doors
still burning the moist lamps of
Christian hope in startled eyes.
See! The soft smile of the
innocent martyr, luminescent
day and night on the burning heart
of the nation's persecuted voices
in silent light of thousand candles.
Can you poison the truth
Can you bruise its body
Can you break its mouth
Can you cover its head with a hell-mate
Can you assassinate its character
Can you hide it from CC cameras
Can you sedate it with alcohol
Can a motorcycle blanket its corpse
Can they, when the angels blow the
last trumpet of the judgment day?
They have tortured the burning
voice of your timeless answer
to death and thrown on the roadside
dust of a painful loneliness but
Heaven must have unfurled
a red carpet dear brother and
the Lord must've risen with
a jewelled crown of eternity
for the brave mission, complete
till you signed with the last breath
of your bleeding footprint.
Author: Sreekanth Kopuri
On 24th March 2025 an unknown dead body full of bruises was found under suspicious circumstances beside the highway, under a motorcycle. It was later recognized as a renowned Christian apologist Pastor Praveen Pagadala. While the government declared it an accident; the Christian community of the nation staged vociferous protests claiming it was a pre-planned murder. This controversial death drew international attention.
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