A RENEWED LEASE OF LIFE
Tulsi Naidu
Dying are the dreams that once were yours.
Their coffins beckon them with open doors.
Has time arrived to bid them all farewell?
Do you, alas, also hear their knell?
Can none of us hold on to their heels
to pull them back? We still might try, one feels.
Castes and creeds should end was your call.
They keep on changing seats, but that is all.
Today one is boss, tomorrow another.
Envies a ‘foreward’ man his ‘backward’ brother!
The norm of robbing Paul to pay Peter–
is this a ‘caste and creed eradicator’?
Merit no use, no use a medal of gold!
If rise you would, some bundles you must hold
or in the ‘Schedule’ figure – your best citation
and catapult for fastest elevation!
A scramble for inclusion in the Schedule
by hook or crook has now become the rule!
You paved afresh the path of Ahimsa.
That Smoothened path we’ve left and strayed so far!
Now, badly caught in Conflict’s thick quagmire,
new skill in slinging mud could we acquire!
Our expertise in the handicraft of butchery
sub-standard not; it deserves a Ph.D!
Hadn’t you said that freedom’s freedom true
when midnight streets are safe for women too?
It now would be indeed a valorous feat
if even men, at midnight, walked the street!
The only guesswork: which would claim one’s life–
bomb, bayonet, bullet, sword or knife?
If likes of you; dear Bapu, here and there
upon this earth, hidden be somewhere,
may they intern selfishness and strife
to give your dreams a renewed lease of life.