File photo of novelist and poet Vikram Seth
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to review its controversial order that reinstated Section 377, which bans gay sex, a decision that has dismayed gay rights activists in India.
Author Vikram Seth, who calls the court ruling a defeat of human rights, spent a sleepless night putting his thoughts into a poem that he e-mailed to NDTV last night, hoping his words would "give heart to some."
"To sneer at love...is unnatural crime," he writes.
Here is a full text of Vikram Seth's "Through Love's Great Power"
Through love's great power to be made whole
In mind and body, heart and soul -
Through freedom to find joy, or be
By dint of joy itself set free
In love and in companionhood:
This is the true and natural good.
To undo justice, and to seek
To quash the rights that guard the weak -
To sneer at love, and wrench apart
The bonds of body, mind and heart
With specious reason and no rhyme:
This is the true unnatural crime.
Author's note: Any person, publication or channel may use, disseminate or publish this poem and recording freely - without permission from either NDTV or the author.