My Dear Children Of the World,

I’m writing to you because there’s no point in addressing the old geezers, who only keep talking in boardrooms, while the young keep dying in battlefields. When devils fight, why is it that angels have to pay the price?

I wish you good little people can, in some way, influence the big bad ones to understand that life is too short to spend in warring.

Having been born in safe quarters, you have no idea what it is to be born in a conflicted zone. Or how it feels to grow up in a land that self-proclaimed defenders of faith constantly keep battling for.

You have no clue how it must feel to forever live on tenterhooks, waiting for the show to begin, where rockets, bombs and missiles fly across the sky to take your breath away. Your ears are so tuned to lullabies that you cannot even imagine the chaotic confusion of a scurrying crowd after the songs of sirens are played.

When you are brought to your cribs, there is festivity in the air, not the fear of separation or asphyxiation. Your expiry dates aren’t brief because you are allowed to grow up into adults, consuming goodies and colas, not toxic air and gases.

You are unfolded like a flower with gentle hands, not roughly moulded by callous ones to fit into an arena of clashes. Your life is buried in love and care, not in rubbles and ruins. Be grateful that you are so lucky.

And I hope that in your ingenious ways, you can somehow explain to the erring adults that when you hold grudges, your hands aren’t free to catch the blessings. Take care.

My dear Children Of War,

It has always been happening, but it took a bunch of you to send shockwaves across an indifferent world, to finally wake them up. Who knew that wringing the conscience of the globe was just child’s play? All that required was for you to get involved.

I wish you were not born in Palestine. Or Israel. Or in any warring nation where crimes and calamities are manufactured for generations thus taking away your parents’ right for freedom, and your right for a happy childhood. You are made to feel guilty with pronouncements that children like you have to learn to accept the conditions you are born into.

Right from the crib to the playground to your graves. I’m afraid, you have no choice but to get used to the tunes of sirens; the echoes of bombs; the light of fires and the darkness of death.

But wait, that’s not all. Even as you go, you have to make sure to paint a pretty sorry picture, with your blood splattered dangling lifeless arms and legs; because somewhere out there, are photographers with DSLR’s, about to make you famous. Somewhere out there is a watching world, waiting to empathise with you. Somewhere out there is a triumphant media trying to turn your precious lives into a circus.

My little angels of war, on behalf of an adult world, I’m sorry that some battlefields are different, where not soldiers, but you and your families are required to play warriors. I’m sorry that in some laws of Karma, bad things happen to good people and the evil ones get away with a spate of lies.

I’m sorry that even after your departure, a cold and callous world offers you words of accusations instead of condolences; lies instead of truth; condemnations instead of citations; excuses instead of remorse; with some even terming you as ‘human animals’ who probably deserve to be wiped out from the face of the earth. I’m sorry you had to witness this nefarious and scandalous spectacle, in your brief sojourn on earth.

My brave little warriors, it is also because of you that the scenario right now is unique. Facebookers like me are embroidering their statuses; the X, Y, Z’s are busy tweeting and chirping; Instagrammers are displaying dirges and singing requiems; the retired students of the Whattsapp University, are carrying you forward to unknown heights, while the clowns on Idiot Boxes have reached an all- time low. In short, everyone is analysing and dissecting your ‘deadly’ performances.

As if it wasn’t enough that your leaders never permitted you to live in peace, now the social media is hell bent on not even allowing you to Rest In Peace. The only solace being, that now you need not harbour any fears.

Now you need not shed any tears. You came into this world with a cry. I hope you were smiling as you said your goodbye.

I know you may find it difficult to believe, but on our side of the world, where children are primed into becoming adults, the most precious thing is the smile on the face of a child. And where you are right now, I bet all your cherubic frowns are automatically turned upside down.

I don’t have to reiterate the repetitive phrase for your souls to rest in peace, for I’ve heard that in Heaven there is always peace. So all I can beseech you is to look down from above; light up the dark world below and if possible, sprinkle a shower of sense and reason.

So that the ‘concerned’ leaders running the show and the indifferent audience watching it, can drench themselves in it and finally take some action. Till we meet in Heaven, or Hell, or wherever one is ordained for.

Yours affectionately

A mother

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