To commemorate the 71st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima by the United States of America during the Second World War, voluntary organization Eklavya organised a programme here on Saturday.
The devastating effect of the nuclear attack did not stay limited only to that period, because the current residents of Hiroshima still feel its impact to this day.
Items preserved in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, such as wall-clock, marbles, lunch box, frock, and other such objects now exist as caught up in that haunting moment in time, and remind us about the people who owned them. This collection of poems titled ‘Main Dhoondh Raha Hoon’ (I am searching) is a compilation about a few of those objects. It describes what was happening on that day of August 6 in Hiroshima, through telling us about what its people were doing. These lines also show us the immediate aftermath of the explosion.
The collection was unveiled on Saturday by poet Rajesh Joshi, the Director General of Japan Foundation, New Delhi, Karu Miyamoto, and translator Tomoko Kikuchi.
The residents of Bhopal have also suffered under a terrible tragedy, similar to what the inhabitants of Hiroshima had endured, which became known as the Bhopal Gas Disaster. Rajesh Joshi recited some poems written about that incident.
During the event some of the poems from the collection unveiled today were presented by children.