Shekhar Kapur's goodbye

THE nation has let out an emotional reaction over the 26/11 terror attacks, but the grieving continues. Oscar-nominated director Shekhar Kapur's poignant poem about a victim's inexplicable relationship with a bullet finds its way among the tributes offered in the new issue of Verve.

Sunday MiD DAY excerpts the beginning of his moving poem, titled simply, Goodbye, My Love.u00a0u00a0

as she left her womb,
thrust out by a violent birth
i knew that she and I
were destined for the most
intimate of all relationships

time stood still
as I watched her
inexorably sail towards me
so she and I would join
in one final embrace
to complete an event
born in eternity

for since the first explosions
that formed the universe
and the first metals had beenu00a0u00a0 created
she and I had been preparing for this one event

how many forms must she have taken
how many hands must have shaped her and how many eons must have formed her
and how many men must have used her
before she left for this final journey
between me and her

as I looked around and saw
the head of my friend's daughter explode, the blood sailing outwards and the drops, finding their own individuality
falling on the table cloth, astonishingly in the most even geometric pattern
and yet as I looked up
she was still travelling towards me

I said my silent goodbyes
to loved ones that could never be part of the intimacy with which the bullet and I would meet in one final embrace...

(The full version of Goodbye, My Love is in Verve, January 2009)