Sushma Swaraj

(A tribute to India's beloved Sushma Swaraj, former External Affairs Minister, who passed away on 6th August 2019.Sushma means splendorous beauty and Swaraj, her husband's first name, stands for one's own home-land.) A mother bid adieu, an elder sister departed and an elder sister-in-law vanished. Children of India spreading across the globe in a diaspora of friendly sunshine have lost a dear mother. Has light forsaken its abode? Are flowers whimpering in tears? Are the skies raining grief? Have birds sobbed on Ganges banks? The mother eagle, who used to gather her fledglings in distress, marooned across the darkness of world's battlefields and distant deserts of conflict, under her spreading wings' comfort and then reach them to peaceful nests on Indian shores soaked in her torrential love, has just flown away. Patient like Mother Earth, smiling like the Goddess of Wealth, soft-spoken like the Goddess of Wisdom, and moving majestically around like the Goddess of Power on world forums, sowing goosebumps wherever she strode, Mother India's dear daughter, splendorous beauty of the land of seers, her forehead decked in the vermilion of an ancient cultural past, has just left without uttering a word. Weep India unabated with the sobbing parrot of the heart, call out "Oh Mother, come back fresh in the morn, flower in nature and enter Indian womanhood to keep raining countless worlds of shine"