MY
COUNTRY MY PEOPLE
(Modern
Indian Epic)
Moments
are not the retinue of time. There is one which
decides
the turning point of mankind. I can’t hand over to sighs
that
time which stands and beckons me. To hell with the shades
to
recline and chew the gum of past.
Remember, the storms do not count for a life which strides
With
hills and shifts oceans; the fiercest storms blow off while
Struggles
of life flit around like flies.
Look! Drunk on pearls of sweat, the sun grows large
and
formidable with millions sickles and hammers of light.
In history where savage winds blow in cantos, I cannot be
Like
the braches of trees that remain trembling in the hands
Of
unrelenting winds.
Do not query why so restless, ask the ocean why it is restless.
Do
not say why so furious; ask the hurricane for the answer. Better
Know
that time after all is my paper, upon which I write the
Charter
of my dreams for the world, sculpture a colossus of force
Out
of man; my will, will shout and break the spine of time, tear off
the
horizon and throw a new era on the earth-
It
shall confer unrest on man and
Flow
like red-hot blood through all the roads of
Our
villages and make him into a sea and into a tempestuous storm.
I
shall gift that consciousness to my country with my four dimensional poems….
Now,
centuries will speak the language, which I learnt in the wombs of forests;
My
word will be the legacy to future generations;
my
poems, only countries and nations deserve-
11
The
earth is a natural museum into which generations of flora and fauna set;
And
our children, the wingless birds set, like rays of evening sun-
And
sons of new generations rise from new
Wombs
and new seeds, with new faces, surrounded
By
new orbs of light only to weave new civilizations, for the pages of history,
Which
keep bulging, until the axe of time descends on it mercilessly.
Sweat
flows as an eternal under-current of history, the sinews of human machine
work, to
Make
this glittering superstructure remain, constantly creaking like gigantic
wooden wheel, never at rest and never fed with grease-
History,
the stupid woman, works up her hoary voice in tremulous tones, to narrate the
Epic
tales of man from graying reason, men listen to her in all times-
The
museum is filled and emptied; crowds pass in, and pass out through the halls,
like moving winds restless for an unbounded journey, for peaks unseen, unknown
but dreamt of generation after generation by the eyes of trees, animals, Men
and molecules: while the drums of armies, governments, judicatures, dictators
and demagogues continue sounding their empty fanfares-
O each age hungers for a passion, each age invites the rule of stupid
theory, willingly; subjects itself to its sovereignty, while the intellect
remains critical, watching and hatching the eggs of a new age-
111
Once
before the jaws of monstrous cities
Swallowed
me
I
used to relax my limbs on the golden sands of seaside beaches.
And
stretch my gaze beyond the restless
Waves
of the blue sea.
I
used to bathe in the vague sweetness of fancying the objects and lands, beyond
the limits of my visual experience…is it Rangoon, or Singapore, or Bangkok,
or that large chunk of water, that liquid sapphire, the Pacific, which is my
blue dream flying
In
the sky, fallen to the ground, having lost its wings, somewhere suddenly.
Seas
are punctuations in the sentence of earth
The running civilizations breath rest a while
When
commas, colons, and hyphens interfere in their travels.
They
are then introduced to the lands of new shores,
with
fresh looks and In fresh garments.
Seas are pots of ink, which the earth uses
To
write her romances.
Empires, civilizations, scents of knowledge
Are
scribblings, which the winds carry from the seas.
Those
ancient winds, light the cities, rule the countries.
And , it is the same ink with which the epics
Of
man are written. Time swallows the poems
Written
by man, for the health of man.
I ate old poems now, and vomited their
Undigested
limbs. Now
My
hunger is for the new word.
I
knit poiems now with the void
Thundering
beyond my eyes,
With
the blue whispering beyond my seas
With
the hights soaring beyond my stars:
With
depths in me which my hand
Cannot
reach,
With
al the material which my
Contemporaries
are not familiar with-
Beyond
the cities in which I remain
Undigested:
Beyond
the forests where my soul hatches
Her
yearnings,
Beyond
that circular line which binds all
Created
things and only the one arc of which is
Visible
to human eyes,
And
beyond which my third eye, craves to burst:
There
waiting for me
My
blue, blue sea, lying in wait
For
centuries on end..
Turned
into water and fled away
I
was looking on and on at children playing
Beside
a distant gate, while my mind wandered
away,
spreading its branches far far into
horizons
of some other world-
one
day when I drop from the branch their
children
will occupy that branch they
will
blossom their own flowers. They will bear their
own
fruit and enjoy their honey. They too
will
drop one day.
Men,
women, and children all the families keep
Coming
into the streets and going back into their
Houses.
It is all this much, going into the sun
from
the shade and going back into the shade
from
the sun: like shadows of clouds thrown
on
the earth like the dreams of the roads-
all
of us leaves, born to some tree. All of
us
are flowers blossoming on one branch. All
of
us leave everything and depart, giving place
to
some others:however,living our own life time-
who
can stop this gigantic wheel hurtling across
the
void of the universal space.
It
emotionalizes man’s centuries, it kicks up
History
like dust on the roads. What hand can
Overcome
its unconquerable power?
Iv
The gigantic New Man
Really do you believe
The wheel of time turned and turned
Lives into cross and man into Christ;
That is this day of amazing sculpture
When the sun of a anew era is rising
On the horizon…
He is getting us a new gift of a new ‘Geetha’
A Geetha, which roars about Revolution
And Martyrdom…
Today this heroic new Era shattered the
Chains of prisonership and changed man
Into a gigantic force….
That force that man is aggrandising the
Frontierless sky, as if the steps he laid
On earth is not enough.
Iron coloured dawns and gunpowder odours
Are awaking, itching for war, sleeping
In the muscles and drumming an Era’s
Slogans and ideologies… the trash and
Rubbish, all that of that era vanished
With the pages of history…
Man rolled in terrific emotions, is being
Washed off to new shores,
As like the orb of sun oscillating between
East and West; between the shores of
Light and darkness.
That very new and hefty man
Is dashing against the sky from the
Old dilapidated caves of
History and dragging untruth
To cross-
(From Seshendra Sharma’s collection of poems ‘SESHA JYOTSNA’)
V
WAVES
OF THE NEW ERA
How
may sunsets and sunrises
How
may storms and how many shores, this dawn had to cross to reach here-
to
reach here with the new wild winds from the forests-
This new dawn is shouting, raising a new voice of unknown power.
It
is a new dream a new wave- a dream that blossomed on the horizon of
The
new era. It is the wave pouncing on us.
Man
bathing in the redness rained by this dawn and becoming pure and sacred
Is
rushing to our shores like an oceanic wave rising to kiss the sky-
Tearing away the iron curtains that divide the human beings and wearing
The
veiling voices of the oppressed peoples of the world as swords in his
scabbard,
The
new man is walking with giant footsteps to usher in a new era on the earth-
Oh! The human sun is hanging like a dangling diamond held to the
buntings
Adorned
to our mind on this celebrated day of the NEW ERA-
Now
the languages are flying away like clothes spread to dry on the rope:
artificial
frontiers of countries are trembling in the new ferocious winds-
and
humanity is stretching its looks nakedly and anxiously
into
the yonder horizons of the future-
(from Seshendra Sharma's collection of poems'Sesha Jyotsna)
Dear visitor,
You may send your critique to the email addresses given below
[email protected],
[email protected]
if you please....
