On the anniversary of the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri, I wrote a brief prose-poem which was published by The Wire:
A lot of life is left in a man being killed.
He does not at first foresee the end. He knows, of course, that anything can happen. When it begins his only worry is that he will be unable to work. At the very least, he thinks, he will be unable to lift heavy loads. He had himself made the door of his room from which they dragged him out.
Then it settles in as disappointment. There was so much more work to be done in the unfinished house. The iron rods striking him are raising dust from a ground sown with regret.
He knows he can list the names of the men whose voices he recognises in the dark. A few from the dinner in his house only two nights ago. He will repeat the names to the police, he tells himself, before losing consciousness for a minute.