An Ode to Anuradha - On her Sixth Death Anniversary

The following was sent by Kobad Ghandy from New Delhi’s Tihar Jail to the Mainstream editor on April 12, 2014: “Through a poem by Rumi in memory of his soul-mate and idol, Sham Tabriz, a fate similar to what I faced on this day six years ago.”

Your Face

You may be planning departure, as a human soul leaves the words taking almost all its sweetness 

with it. You saddle your horse. 

You must be going. Remember you have friends

here as faithful as grass and sky. 

Have I failed you? Possibly you’re

angry. But remember our nights of conversation, 

the well work, yellow roses by the ocean,

the longing, the archangel Gabriel 

saying ‘so be it’. Sham Tabriz, your face, 

is what every religion tries to remember.

I have broken through to longing now, 

filled with a grief I have felt before, 

but never like this.

The Centre leads to love, 

Soul opens the creation core.

Hold on to your particular pain,

That too can take you to God.

My work is to carry this love

as comfort for those who long for you,

to go everywhere you walked

and gazed at the pressed-down dirt.

Jelaluddin Rumi

I do not know about the soul, 

but her inner radiance lives on,

as a message of human values,

coming from deep compassion for the underprivileged.

Grief, is no doubt there, 

but time heals the wounds of the heart, 

and now acts as fuel to the fire, 

that brings light amidst this darkness,

through the message of her life.

Anuradha lives on, as dew drops

on the petals of humanity. 

Kobad

Tihar Jail 1, High Risk Ward