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I Heard One Day ...

  It stared at me from the mantelpiece straight.
An amused, startled, puzzled look it was
Beckoned me, waved me nearer.
As if to share a secret, to confide.
He had my books, fat volumes of scrawling alphabets.

Curious I asked his purpose for such
I mastered them- his reply made me start
I went through them;
Histories, Geographies and Laws of motion,
Greek, Latin and the reverse Urdu-
Even raked my brain over calculus said he.

Oh! Ancestor mine, beautiful tail,
The concrete jungle no place for thee-
Books and bananas strange bed fellows!
And then he gave the look- bemused
Oh! Learned one, I pity you much;
The words of wisdom change you not
Hypocrisy breeds perils of civilization,
All around terrors of war, of hunger, of poverty

But lo! I see, the ‘heavenly’ abodes, touching the skies
And like kings in chariots, rule over!
Principles of lust no book did teach
Corrupt power did when besiege?
The world is like this white, he said
A bare skull, hollowed inside
The seeds of knowledge make thee fertile.

Alas! No more do I see the rays
The rays of emotions that warmed this land;
Words of logic do illogical seem
As life moves on, rotten to the core!
It smiled again and looked away far
As if to dive into the futures ahead, hunt for answers-
The riddles of life, of happiness and love…
The books lay… with time and tide-
Only that ‘sound of silence’ resonated inside.


14-Aug-2005

More by :  Saptarshi Das

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