Alchemist (in Memory of fellow-activist Smitu Kothari)

A blind turtle
 from the depths
 of the ocean floor
 finds its way
 to the surface;
 its mouth aquiver
 searching for the
 golden lasso—
 the shadow of
 the crescent moon.
 So hard, they say,
 to get human life.
 But in this
 short span,
 you diffused the
 golden lasso
 into a thousand
 iridescent beams,
 rainbow coloured prisms.
 Bridging a myriad schisms;
 alchemist of
 scholarship and activism,
 you spread the message
 of voiceless people
 across the universe;
 then you turned
 turtle, our visions,
 by leaving
 so quickly!

Fellow traveller
 to Harsud,
 the Narmada valley,
 may your voice
 never wander by hill-sides
 echoing in the wilderness,
 but flow like the
 waters of the river,
 deepening and quickening
 the current of humanity.

May you be re-born
 somewhere,
 some place,
 along the way
 of the white clouds,
 spreading the elixir
 in the air.

Sagari Chhabra