Re-doing Richard Aldington’s original with a touch of mine:
We passed and left you drowning. Let there be no oratory, no sad melody in the background, no heart-wrenching lament. No need for tears shining on your cheek, shining like a diamond, no need for regrets. We left you drowning in those monstrous waters, when every rising inch of water, meant more deaths, cries and homelessness. We even saw you gathering your kids, hanging on the last pile of wood, to find dry land & to shelter your beloveds, leaving behind your homes, businesses, kettle & fields.
It was a painful watch & kismet had its own plans; you died and we live. We eat from your fields yield; we salute for the last time those fields which grew food for us, kettle which fed our babies, those kids whose joyful faces made our day. More painful it was, to see, some amongst us, still lying in apathy and pretending nothing has happened.
Who was more fortunate, can you tell? For you there are tears, shelter-less nights and cold twilight drooping in awful desolation over those motionless lands drowned in water. For us sunlight and the sound of cheerful voices, song and hope and laughter, despair, gaiety, love — life.
Syed Ali Abbas Zaidi
Unfortunate, our land is.