Photo Essay

REMEMBRANCE

DYUTIMAN MUKHOPADHYAY PHOTOGRAPHY

'You won't have my hatred…

Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you won't have my hatred.

I don't know who you are and I don't want to know, you are dead souls.

If this god for whom you kill blindly for, made us in his image, every bullet in my wife's body will have been a wound in his heart.

So no, I won't give you the gift of hating you. However you have tried, but responding to hatred with anger means succumbing to the same ignorance which has made you what you are.

You want me to be afraid, to look at my fellow citizens with a distrustful eye, that I sacrifice my freedom for my safety. You lost. Same player, is still playing.

I saw her this morning. Finally, after days of waiting. She was as beautiful as when she left that Friday night, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her 12 years ago. Of course I am devastated with sadness, I'll give you this little victory, but it will be a short one. I know that she will be with us everyday, and that we'll meet one another in the heaven of free souls which you will never have access to.

There's two of us, my son and I, but we're stronger than all the world's armies. Actually, I don't have any more time for you, I need to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is 17 months old, he'll eat his snack as he does every day. Then we'll play as we do every day, and all his life, this little boy will offend you by being happy and free.

Because no, you won't have his hatred either.’

— Antoine Leiris, in a Facebook post, after his wife was killed in the Nov. 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attack which left 130 people dead at the Bataclan concert hall.

Photographs taken on July 26, 2023; Bangalore, India.

Camera—Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro.