Art engages reality in this satirical poem on present-day society. Mob mentality is a stark phenomenon from Charlottesville in USA where whites wanted to be domineering over leftists to Ballabgarh in Haryana, India where right wing Hindutva zealots wanted to be domineering over Muslims. The young poet looks beyond the incidents and perpetrators to seek answers to this complicated riddle.

Mob Mentality

I think of the unnamed lot
that forms a mob faceless – 
chanting slogans – pro- or anti-
side “A”, or side “B”,
as fuelled from the top, absolutely
unknown, attached through
a hierarchy, a string of
fierce contacts hurling abuses,
arousing a novel sentiment.

With a sole, shared motive,
a fervid passion in the direction
of the road customized for them,
the horde marches ahead,
convinced that each of them
will return with hands full, 
unharmed after the task
they are assigned is accomplished.

At the onset, what I feel for them
is anger, hatred, a will to avenge
in a similar fashion, or worse.
But I am pierced inside when
as their first and foremost 
characteristic, I pick vulnerability.

These people are not hands
which burn, slit, and rape.
They may be the matchboxes, 
kerosene, or at the most, 
swords that tear whatever comes 
their way, and swords do not think.

Once naked, out of sheath,
on a spree to finish the task
based on marked homes,
typical features, and appearances –
all meticulously explained,
they return raising the war-cry.
Who, then, are the hands?
Some swords turn into hands.