Mainstream WeeklyThe Chamber of My Heart –
‘Twenty thousand children killed in Palestine’:
U.N report
A chamber of my heart broke;
gasping, it dived and
clasped a fin;
‘You need to school
yourself in decency;
we do not kill our kids,
here in the sea’,
scolded the dolphin severely.
The chamber of my heart flew
hanging on to a star;
‘I have been watching from afar
and in the twinkle of my eye,
O my, I’ve never seen
such bloodshed in the sky.
You humans who suckled
at your mother’s breast,
have lost your way’,
admonished the star
from the Milky Way.
In desperation,
the chamber of my heart
went to the forest;
it heard the executioner’s axe
felling the last tree.
It hung on to a bough
as it spoke,
‘How did you forget your roots
based on soil,
why did you not foil,
their macabre plans;
how did you not hear
the children’s excruciating pain,
why did you look away in vain?’
Then the last tree
fell to the ground;
the chamber of my heart
knelt and found,
a snail,
‘I carry my home on my body,
how then did you allow,
so many bodies
to pile up in yours?’
The chamber of my heart
went weeping to the river;
its words flowed in a stream,
‘My waters have turned
a bloodied red;
but as you bury the dead,
speak not the words of late;
of revenge, retribution and hate,
instead renew ye olde words,
of love, compassion and humanity,
only these will restore
the world’s lost sanity’.
Sagari Chhabra
2nd July 2026 [revised 7 July 2026]
New Delhi
o o
My Body / Bodies
I am carrying my body;
but my heart has to contain
genocide;
my eyes watch young women cry,
children commit suicide,
as they watch their future rubbled;
I continue to breathe
within my self-contained bubble.
My lungs must accept
the dung, debris and smoke
of drones, bombs and guns,
the wanton killing
of sailors on ships,
just watch the fun;
all this while
my body slips into stretches;
as health-workers run out of stretchers.
Divine bliss lies within;
this my body is its only home
and earth its sole refuge;
but this war with its callous killing
and rendering of refugees,
reducing all pain to an image,
and all humanity to be crushed
pushed back into a ‘stone age’,
just who allowed
this blood-soaked page?
Still my body stretches
and I breathe
O, so deeply
on Yoga Day;
but my soul asks,
how do I pray,
Om Shanti?
Sagari Chhabra
21st June 2026 [Revised 7 july 2026]
New Delhi