Toronto, Canada
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Sitting by Your Side
Amidst the hustle-bustle of day and night
You seem to have lost yourself
In the deep veil of wealth
And materialistic pleasures,
In the dark forests of life.
Your once proud and resolute eyes
Now lack the spark of love.
The joy and enthusiasm have faded away.
That's why I came to sit by your side.
That's why I came to sit by your side
So that a poem, fluttering and dancing
Come here and tweet away
On the tiny wings of words.
You become a rider and aim for great heights.
Bitterness, pride, hatred,
Selfishness, and stinginess
All may transform
Into the nectar of love and affection
In the bright open sky of poetry.
That's why I came to sit by your side.
Twinkling in the Darkness
Twinkling in the darkness,
One night, I thought,
"It would have been better
if ‘O WORD’ you were mute,
Pain, frustration, agony, yearning
would not have affected me.
I would not have suffered from these feelings
and lived a convenient life."
Then another night, a thought arose.
"O Word, you may not have been mute
but deprived, devoid of the ability to feel and express,
And you would not have that momentum.
You would fall and break,
And when you were ready to voice the pain,
The context and meaning would change,
And I would continue
Living within my comfort zone."
Sleep eluded me another night,
And I kept thinking,
"It might have been better
If you were neutral, impassive.
Yet, you could have continued
To exist within me.
I would not feel joy nor sorrow,
And would have been just a neutral bystander
Living the life of a common man."
Several nights passed by.
Many mornings came.
You kept reminding me of my obligations,
And unknowingly, my growth and progress,
My breaking and mending, found voice.
What did you do, O Word,
Before the dawn that
Sometimes I felt a life-size mirror,
Sometimes a heap of gunpowder,
sometimes a flickering candle in the dark?
There was no backbone
To look back and return.
I saw many companions and a lot to do.
Living Dream
Treading steadily with words
I am moving ahead.
The dream of a great world
Can’t be built in a day.
The fierce fire of the sun's fission has filled
Every inch of man's body.
I want to save the fire in dreams,
To convert it into energy.
Continuously searching for truth through
The fog of thought and dichotomy,
I want to weave and see
A living dream of a happier
And better world.
Kadaknath, a chicken
In the barren, rocky terrain,
Where the hills slope down
Amidst the silence,
A Kadaknath chicken crows,
Its call echoing through the dark early morning.
A Bhil tribesman with a bow and an arrow
Sweats to irrigate his land.
The dark clouds shroud the sky,
And as the rhythm of drums and claps
Fills the air,
He continues to till his soil.
Centuries ago,
He fashioned clothes out of the sun's rays,
And darkness became his shawl.
Marking the arrival of freedom,
The Kadaknath chicken crowed proudly
As the poor man placed his thumbprint on the paper,
Becoming rich in spirit.
In the midday heat,
Forest nymphs rubbing dirt with stones
Slowly turned into a river,
The shallow Anas River.
Woven in stone and
As a freely-flowing stream,
The young women's musky fragrance
Turned the Mahua flowers into falls.
Bit by bit, Kadaknath kept guarding the girls.
Within the crevices of wrinkles,
An old man's eyes saw the sunset.
From the fields came
Nania-Pidia, women, cows, oxen, and goats,
The Kadaknath let out a long call.
In the darkness, two yellow eyes shined,
The roar of a speeding jeep is heard,
And the old man's eyes saw
The government tiger's pearly white teeth,
Licking women's flesh in their homes.
The party was on.
Kadaknath called death-crowing, halaled,
As the bumper crop of thumb impressions
Grown on the Muster Rolls of forged wages.
___________________________
- Kadaknath - A breed of chicken found in the Jhabua district
- Anas - A major river flowing through the Jhabua district
- Nanuia-Pidia - Common names of indigenous men
