Rondels are a French form of poetry, consisting of 13 lines: two quatrains and a quintet, rhyming as follows: ABba abAB abbaA. The capital letters are the refrains, or repeats.

The recent events surrounding rape and the following outcry in India has been on my mind a lot. There is much I have to say but I will restrict myself here to saying that we need to sensitise the entire country if the rape has to stop. And that includes those eve teasers and “roadside Romeos” who feel free to grope at young girls in crowded places. This poems comes from one such memory of an outrage.

TRAGEDY

There are only tragedies here

voices wrenched from innocent souls

no one dies or is remembered

just roughness, unforgiving and cold.

Ask not how the story unfolds

or why humanity disappears

there are only tragedies here

voices wrenched from innocent souls.

They chewed our bodies threadbare

as through our lives they stole

yet we stand we still are whole

despite knowing. In every leer

there are only tragedies here.