Lady Justice

by: Tharun Jayaprasad

*Knock knock*, who’s at the door?

You do look familiar, have we met before?

Oh yes, how can I forget you!

You are just the person I was looking for.

Boy! how different you seem from what I had heard and seen.

Gleaming with honesty and those eyes draped in the fabric of impartiality,

Lady Justice, that’s how I hoped that you would have been.

Why is that now, the satin on your eyes lies tilted?

The eye covered, is turned away from the helpless cries,

The one peeking ensures the creatures who play you and wreck you, 

Stay untouched, undisputed.

Why is that now, the balance leans more to a side?

While one of them is empty, unsatisfied,

The other is well looked after, though lacking any rationale,

That makes you, for them, fight.

Why is that now, the sword which you once yielded to fight for the deserving,

Being used relentlessly by your namesake preachers,

To slash through the deprived to whom they say,

 “Preserving our faith is all that we’re doing.”

I’d heard that you bore no feelings for either.

Facts and proofs were the only tools which you used.

How I used to look up to you and admire,

But now I know,

Even a symbol like you can be tampered with and can be misused.

I’ve just realized how rude I’ve been,

Just like one of them,

Without even listening to your cause,

Tireless bashing I’ve been engaging in.

I ask you this with mighty astonishment,

What is it that has made you present?

Your reply compels me to think,

If not you then who is the one donning your stature!

Who is the one making the mighty ship democracy sink?

How is it that your power was stripped,

And who is the one that pushed you off the brink?

Sympathy is what I feel for your plight.

The horrors every day that catches your sight.

Rapes, murders, brutality and extremism,

All of which you could’ve plucked out.

Now all you can do is sit back,

With your long arms tied and your mouth shut tight.

Although, it does relieve me that you remain pure and just.

Bringing you back to authority is undoubtedly a must.

I hope that a Dawn will soon come,

When these wrongdoings come undone.

A time when the ones like me and you won’t have to keep mum.

When the lesser privileged will find a voice 

And the dish named Justice will once again be served hot, barring none.

Saying so, it’s time for me to bid you adieu,

Now that I know that still on our side is you.

Until the day of salvation,

I’m forced to write and not act,

Because nowadays, demanding for the truth,

Makes you an enemy of the fluttering saffron, green and in the middle, blue.