The fierce Sun beats us not

by Sunil Sharma / October 4th, 2026

Be not be afraid of the Sun.
Go out!
Get burnt in the heat. Do not be frightened!

Remember this, dear child, our ancestors got
burnt by the sun. They were drenched by rain.
Shivered in the
damp winters. Took changes with a broad grin.

On dusty summer afternoons, they built big
buildings, lived in the slums. Airless hovels
in
Delhi, Mumbai
or Gurugram, then left for the outer towns.

We
survived heat, dust, humidity, fevers, chills
coughs, open drains, floods, famines, assaults.

We are earth children.
Thin, yet strong-boned. Unbreakable.
No violent winds or quakes can kill.
Raise hell!
We walk through the fire-storms.

Sunil Sharma is an academic, critic, literary editor and author with 29 published books: Eight collections of poetry; five of short fiction; two novels; a critical study of the novel, and, 10 joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism, and, two joint poetry collection and one joint fiction collection. Recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ Inaugural Poet of the Year award in 2012. Winner, among others, of the Panorama Golden Globe Award-2023, and, Nissim Award for Excellence (2022) for the novel Minotaur. His poems were published in the UN project Happiness, The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, (2015). Read other articles by Sunil, or visit Sunil's website.

This article was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2026 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.