Dr. C. Jacob
Enough
if a sweet song is sung when I die,
No
drugs, no medicines need be used at any rate;
None
should lament, none should weep, sob or sigh,
For
sorrowing over death I ever hate.
Observe
not Pollusion, from incantations be aloof,
Suffice
it’s if my body is bathed and wiped clean;
A
memorial day without a trace of grief
You
may arrange for this worthy poet late or soon.
No
propitiation’s and rites be done for me,
Nor
monthly nor annual ceremonies be performed,
But
gifts to boys and girls you may give in my name
On
any day so fixed and by you confirmed.
What
is past birth and what is rebirth is not known,
Nothing
but liquid-water is man on earth:
Iceberg
is water, its vapour not, we own:
What
does it matter if both are one in birth?
My
wife shouldn’t die with her vermilion mark wiped
No
widowing her in the guise of tenth day ritual;
If
she can bear the pangs of my death, it’s enough:
No
more the obsequies, no more that’s irrational.
I’m
not an atheist, I’m not a faithless man,
I
have longing for life, for all that’s good,
Not
in religion, not in form, neither, nor in clan,
But
in humanism I have great belief, if understood.
For
old and new combined I have built in my heart
A
temple to my taste but with due restraint;
By
living as a rationalistic bridge of art
I
can serve the literary world much like a saint.
The
world as a whole would come to an end one day,
No
eternal rest in the cosmos, I can say on oath:
The
death of man a strange episode, you say?
Why
senseless anguish? The end of all pains, in truth,
Is
indeed a bliss and death a blissful boon I say.