By Dr. Bilal Ahmad Bhat, for TheMONdaily
O India, O Pakistan—hear the whisper of your shared soil.
As dawn breaks, it no longer brings hope, but echoes of fear.
Not birdsong, but blasts disturb our fields—fields where children once played,
Where families shared mangoes under warm summer skies.
Now, silence blooms in the ashes of what was once home.
Across borders written in pain, in ink made from blood,
A mother in Kashmir and a mother in Punjab grieve the same loss.
A child clutches a fading photograph—of a father who left but never returned.
Villages sleep now under quilts of sorrow, haunted by generations that once danced.
We are not strangers.
We are children of the same sky, warmed by the same sun,
Cradled by the same rivers, whispering the same songs in different tongues.
Why then, do our skies thunder with bombs?
Why are our rivers red with grief?
In the breath of every valley, the wind cries stories:
Of young soldiers forced to choose between a rifle and a dream,
Of farmers praying to barren skies,
Of children learning to fear the sound of footsteps.
This is not peace. This is not pride. This is not progress.
Streets where laughter once echoed are now stitched with silence.
Homes, once warm with stories, now weep through cracked walls.
The pain in Lahore mirrors the pain in Lucknow.
The cries under Delhi’s sky match those beneath Karachi’s moon.
The war may pause, but its memory does not.
Scars stretch deeper than borders—etched into the very soul.
No bullet ever truly wins. No bomb secures lasting glory.
But every act of kindness lights a new path forward.
Let us not be prisoners of the past.
Let us not hand our children only ruins and rage.
Let us choose differently.
To build bridges—not bunkers.
To share rain and rice—not war and weapons.
We danced once, together. We sang in the same monsoon.
Can we not do so again?
Let our soldiers rest, not fall.
Let the arms we raise be those that hold—not hurt.
Let the memory of loss birth the courage to love.
Let the nations not be enemies, but neighbors.
To the wounded, to the wanderers, to the weary:
Let peace rise like the morning sun over Wagah,
Let it travel on the backs of doves and the hands of poets.
Let it flow from a refugee’s eyes and a general’s soul.
This is the hour to listen.
This is the moment to choose.
No more headlines soaked in blood.
No more lullabies interrupted by gunfire.
Let the only fire be that which warms.
Let the only border be the one we cross to embrace.
O India, O Pakistan—
Beyond flags, beyond fears, beyond the long shadow of politics,
There is a shared humanity begging to be heard.
Lay down the hate.
Pick up the hope.
Let peace bloom, once and for all.
And let our children inherit not the silence of war,
But the symphony of peace.
