Why this War

WHY THIS WAR?
Dr. Pratap Kumar Swain
Government Autonomous College, Rourkela, India
If the whole wide world is family,
tell me—
why this war?
One sky of endless blue above us,
one green earth beneath our feet;
waters sway in silver rhythm,
winds breathe songs of quiet peace.
Is all this still not enough
to still the hunger in your core?
Or must your pride build higher hills
till seeing eyes see nothing more?
Is war the final language left
to prove how strong a nation stands?
Can victory rise from rivers of blood,
from shattered homes and burning lands?
History sighs through broken crowns—
Ashoka, Alexander too:
they won the world,
they lost themselves,
defeated by the deeds they drew.
Whoever you are, remember this:
you never drank from deathless wine.
No throne outlives the ticking clock,
no power cheats the end of time.
The epics speak in voiceless pain—
though Krishna stood on Dharma’s side,
the earth herself wore widow’s grief,
her children slain, her silence wide.
Today a thousand foreheads fade,
vermilion washed by tears and dust.
A mother loses flesh of flesh,
a wife her love, her faith, her trust.
Tell me—
will triumph turn back time,
return the son, the husband’s breath?
Can medals warm an empty home
or outshout the scream of death?
Cities raised by sweat and hope,
schools where dreams once learned to fly,
lie in ruins, markets broken,
economies that bleed and cry.
Can you rebuild with easy hands
what centuries took time to grow?
Can poison poured on earth and sky
be asked one day to simply go?
Then tell me—
why this war?
Russia, Ukraine—two inner rooms
within a single human house.
Before you break the standing wall,
break stubborn pride, the clenched-up vow.
Not arms, but hearts must open first;
not threats, but listening must rise.
To understand is braver far
than teaching death to multiply.
If you cannot gift a life,
what gives you right to steal one breath?
We strip the earth of all her joy,
then crown her with the weight of death—
Gunpowder heaps, the nuclear glare,
lasers cutting through our fear.
Is this the future meant for one land,
or doom that creeps from far to near?
Science warns in quiet truth—
no border stops the fallout’s flame.
Like Yadu’s fall, the end may come
to earth itself, not just a name.
When all that lives may cease to be,
when dust is all that’s left in store—
Tell me, world—
why this war?