anil gupta's blog

how can there be peace

when so many remain

outside the fold

of all the favours we show

all the considerations in a row

will we stop and pause

will we ask and then look for cause

of this violence all around

the loud signals of hurt unbound

will you catch the stream,

will you stop the breeze

will you block the sun

will you shake the trees

why will you ask me this

why will you explore all that

which does not have all the  colours

which does  not spread shadow under the sun

smile, and chat, who knows

when you will need us

when will you need to abandon

the legacy of prejudices

the game of snubs

no life is wasted here,
no flowers will decay
no sound will be muted here
every body will get his say

will you stop this mayhem
will you listen for a while
will you walk along a few steps
will allow bad memories only to pile

will you laugh the same way again, o little boy

will you listen to the provocative advice

 to turn your face away

when we are not so loud

and thus may not hear the feeble voices

or will you rebel and assert

the right you have to partake

in the bubbles of joy that emerge in the drying pond

in the back of our house

will you sow the seeds of fruits

eaten by you on the road side

who knows, travellers who are hungry

 years after we are gone

may  eat them

remeber blessings count for more

always

even now and so in future

i must start talking to you every day

my dear little one

you might complain, some day, afterall

how could a day turn into night

without metmophosis of our fondness

into some flowers

whose fragrance reached the shores of the island

on which you had been allowed to play

and walk

but i will not build a bridge across,

lest your garden loses its sanctity

swim this side some day

when you wish to partake

the manure which made these flowers bloom

whose fragrance you like so much

i hope

A river has no choice

If she has to flow,

She must accept two banks

How else can she flow,

Even the time needs the banks of past and the future

To flow in present

But there is one difference

You will not

Ask me again and again

If I need to flow still

I am the glow

Of a firefly, now on and now off

But then when it is dawn

I am not there,

Will you take care

Not to let silt settle too much

Like meaningless memories,

Drain them away,

Flow and go

To the shore yet unexplored,

Without a history to show

When you grow up

You will ask some time,

Why did I take so long

To come and dine

With you and watch your tantrums

And some unanswered jabs

At me, for not remembering

So many of your stories

At the moment you demanded

But no, I will not do that,

I will not come

My little boy

Lest the garden planted by your elders

Gets spoiled

I am standing here, on the other

Bank of time

Cross over whenever you want to partake

Some joys of nothingness, some

Fun out of the cup of irreverence

I had   never admitted

All the  lies I told

You, my son for so long

That it did not matter, what

You said, or did

It actually mattered a lot,

Always did. So deeply it did

That I now keep a diary of

All the days and nights

I hid

My tears from you

But not from your mother

Who still wonders why things

Small and big

Make me cry,

Just does not know, still

Why

when you took to walking on a path untreaded

i had not known

the trail will be so long

i tried and then abandoned,

it took me always away from wherever i wanted to go,

can paths turn on their own

differently for different travellers

it seems so

silences sprouted in my garden yesterday

i had not sown the seeds

but then i did nuture spaces

in which the seeds of silence could  grwo

now that they are here, i might as well

nourish them

who knows when there is long interlude

between  the rain spells

the flowers of forgetfulness on these plants

might spread their fragrance

and enable me to forget that

i was waiting for such a long time for

a sound that has now gone underground