By Next Week

Written by Mishthi

[Journalism 3rd year]

"A headline ends. The consequences don't."

"Tomorrow, a headline. By next week, a memory."

Tomorrow,

her name will become a headline.

By afternoon,

a statistic.

By evening,

a debate.

And by night,

the city will erupt.

Not politely.

Not quietly.

There will be fists against barricades,

voices breaking through microphones,

strangers screaming a name

they never had the chance to know.

Enough.

The word will travel

from crowded streets

to glowing screens,

from mothers to daughters,

from one furious voice

into thousands.

People will demand answers.

People will demand names.

People will demand

to know how many warnings

a city needs

before it admits

that something is broken.

For one night,

Delhi will refuse to be silent.

And still...

By next week,

she will become

something people vaguely remember

happened somewhere in Delhi.

The road will remain.

The lights will remain broken.

The crowd will go home.

The cameras will move on.

The barricades will come down.

And somewhere,

another woman will walk that same road

with her heart beating

like an alarm.

That is the cruellest part.

Not that the city cannot hear us.

It can.

We have been screaming

for years.

It is that the city keeps listening

only until the headlines stop.

“Because tomorrow, there will be another headline."

Edited by :[Akshita Chandel]

[English honours,1st year]