By: Goutam Roy

Grant me another life, Oh God, a life beyond this one,
where I may meet my beloved again and tell the unfinished tale—
a tale of love, a tale of pain, born within a darkened room,
where straw became my bed and stale, rotting scraps my daily meal.
There, I befriended insects, my only companions, while imprisoned in a living hell—
all to preserve the hollow honour of pride, the vanity of custom, the tyranny of convention.
Oh God, grant me a freer life in another birth,
that I may finally quench the thirst of my waiting heart.