To Sabeen Mahmud – Prof Badri Raina

Sabeen Mahmud

You lived and worked to elevate

Life, knowing  your own

Was a guest.  In that knowledge

Of instant disappearance,

Your presence was incantatory

And  unmistakable.

Your stalwart conviction

Terrified those without the courage

To  argue a point, but made

A new generation tough and able.

Sabeen, even as we mourn, we

Know such as you are never gone.

 Prof Badri Raina, New Delhi