A Long Narrative Poem

The river flows eternally...
And you cannot bathe in the same waters twice.

To graft new practice onto ancient theories
Is but old wine in new bottles.
Can old waters offer a fresh ablution?
Can archaic beliefs father new lives?

A bus that merely circles back 
to where it began,
And the dogmas of the past—
They are one and the same.

Ancient beliefs only lead us back 
into the shadows of the past;
They recreate the past, 
masquerading as the present.
When practice remains stagnant, 
and beliefs unyielding,
Life itself stands still.

Life is the Truth; theories are but fleeting.
No matter how desperately 
you cling to the past...
The Present shall thunder and pour,
Until the dams of old crumble and give way.

Deluges of water occur...
But those floods are tales of the past.
Today’s stories are of human 
tides and human slaughters...
Consequences... lessons... inevitabilities—
Globalization marches forward.

Even when everything is lost...
Life must take its first breath 
in the waters of the womb.
A beginning, once again, 
from the very start.

For a new life... a new practice...
a new consciousness...
New beliefs, new theories... a New World.

2

Not every day is the season of rain...
Not every day do opportunities knock.

When wind joins the water and
the clouds, storms are born.

When theories join movements,
tidal waves arise.

No matter how well you swim,
if you tie a stone to yourself,
survival is grim.
The heavy stone of dogma
can drown you entirely.

Two parts that burn, one part that kindles—
When they unite, they become water... the H2O.
Two parts of those who walk...
One part of the wisdom that leads.

The form of water is defined
by the vessel that holds it...
Just as the self is shaped by one’s calling,
one’s passion, and one’s station...
Carved by the lineage of caste,
the passage of time,
and the essence of place.

That which burns and that which
kindles unite to become water;
Yet, when unrestrained,
water itself becomes a calamity...
And so it is with a movement.

No matter how many uprisings are stirred,
if they cannot be gathered into a collective force...
Those torrents and
riversp are but lost to the salt-laden
depths of the sea.

Flow... destruction...
the river of life...the ocean...
Water, when heated,
becomes breath-like mist;
when chilled, it turns to ice.

Action alone is not enough...
Mere longing is not sufficient.

Words are one thing, deeds another...
Desires are distinctthe practice that pursues them.

A physical bath is not enough...
For the mind and the heart,
meditation is the true ablution...
The heart requires the constant
washing of contemplation.

May your bath be your eternal consciousness.

3

Those who have conquered
the waters are truly human...
Those who have molded
the waters are the architects of history.

Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Egypt,
Harappa, and the Indus—cities of antiquity...
The Mayan cultures of the Americas,
China, Russia, and
the sacred Manasarovar of Tibet;
The Meru peaks... the vast Himalayas,
Kapilavastu... Taxila, Nalanda...

No matter who they were...
no matter where they dwelt...
Those who molded the waters
were the architects of civilization.
In the annals of time,
the role of managing water
belonged to the Mother...
Katta Maisamma—the Mother of the Weirs—
is the true maker of history.

Touched by the gentle breeze,
The hearts of clouds melt and dissolve into rain;
The woodlands are the sanctuaries
of the cooling winds.

The verdant garland of trees is for the harvest...
For the water... and is it not for
the very breath of oxygen?
Human survival... the survival of nature
Is inextricably entwined with water....
The creatures of the deep,
the dwellers of the land, the amphibians—
Water, tree, and earth share
the bond of mother and child...

The breath of life in the air is a spontaneous gift,
Yet without oxygen, comes an unbidden death.
Three parts of the entire earth
are but salt-laden waters...
Water, air, and tree share
a kinship through the ages.

The chronicle of days gone by is a history
Of how many forests were felled
and how much land was tilled...

Oxygen is the very soul of human existence;
Only what is harvested of
water remains as our bounty...
a thousand rivers overflow,
they are lost to the sea.

Man survives only when
he learns to harness the flow.

4

Every night is a death...
Every morning, a rebirth...
Every tree is a human birth...
Every felling is a human demise...

To know not how to swim is to court peril...
The dried gourd, the boats, the ships, the windmills—
To those who know, the water itself is a highway.
Those who grasped this secret conquered worlds;
They authored history... they sculpted time.

Mountains... hills... the uneven terrains
The chain-link tanks for the fields...
Canals for the rains... streams... brooks... and rivers...
Barrages... dams... contour trenches...
And the schemes of the watershed...
Modern innovations born of necessity...
Water, when heated and confined,
becomes the power of steam...
And with the steam engine,
began the evolution of the modern industry.

---

The wise are like the salt-laden oceans—
We must filter their essence, as
Israel does, to find the pure spring;
We must learn to reap harvests from
the waters, even without the soil.

He who possesses the patience of the sea,
And the power to stir the subterranean fires within—
He is the Teacher, the Leader, the Architect of Time.

It is not merely about summoning the river Ganges,
Nor just leading the surges of a movement...
Like Shiva, who held the torrential
river in his matted locks,
And bore the weight of the heavens upon his head;
Like the Blue-Throated One,
who held the venom within for the world's sake...
True leaders are the Bhagirathas
of the common good.
Those who mold the waters today
are the Bhagirathas of our time.

5

Tokens of a thousand-year-old tale...
The works of the hand, the crafts of the soul...
Handloom—the emblem of grace,
Of refinement and the spirit of a culture.
Ornaments, cities, fortresses, and citadels,
Metals and the treasures of the earth—
The splendors of the loom are
all of our own making!

Let the skill of a thousand years
Not crumble into the dust of neglect.

Millions of lives
Must not wither in hunger.
Youth of Bharat! Khadi is our path...!

A mother’s love is the true nectar.
The earthen pot brings health to the home,
And the handloom’s weave
is a blessing for the body.
The crafts of the hand are
the pillars of the earth's balance;
As fish are the life of the pond,
so is nature the strength of man.
The grace of the loom is unmatched,
The flavor of a home-cooked
meal is beyond compare.
Pure are the greens grown in our own gardens,
And rich is the taste of the harvest we reap.
All of creation, all of art... is the work of the Hand;
Was it not the Hand that turned
the forest-dweller into Man?

6

That vision is but a creation,
The vision itself may be an illusion—
But the emotions it stirs are undeniably true.
All the shadows dancing upon the screen
Only paint the tales of what has passed,
Leading us back into the echoes of yore.

Whether it was found by staying still

Or won by the chase...
Remains a mystery yet to be told.

That thought is not hers alone to claim,
It is the spirit of Nature that
took its very form within him.
The vision fades into the unseen,
Yet the essence remains, etched forever.
All that lies beyond the eye's reach
Are but the vivid imaginings of the invisible.
Nothing that fails to inspire is truly lost;
For the flowers woven into a garland
Shall wither by the morrow's light.
Yesterday’s buds are the blooms of today,
And by tomorrow, they too shall fade away.

The spoken word vanishes into thin air,
Yet becomes eternal within the heart...

Without the one who listens,
Music finds no fulfillment,
And the creation of art holds no meaning
Those distant hills
How beautiful they appear from a far
A delight to the eye, a joy to the mind
Peerless and beyond the reach of words.

The gaze is yours...
but the vision belongs to Nature...
A scene finds its fulfillment only
when an eye is there to behold it;
For the world is mirrored in
the way you choose to see.

Without the one who looks,
The act of seeing loses its soul.
If there were no observer to marvel,
Creation would lack its crowning grace,
And Nature would know no thrill of joy.
Without the artisan’s hand,
The work of art can find no form;
Without the breath of thought,
language has no life.

7

Distant hills appear smooth and soft...
Yet as you draw near,
they reveal their stones and rugged peaks.
Truth is like a sacred fire;
From a far, it offers a guiding light,
But touch it too closely, and it shall consume you.

Distance is but a lingering illusion...
Closeness is the only enduring Truth.
To look is to be a wanderer;
to walk is to be a wayfarer.
But to imagine is to be
a traveler of the universe.
Can the joy that dwells
in the eye and the mind
Be found merely in reaching the end?
The true joy is in the walking,
Toward a higher purpose, a loftier peak.

Those trees have breathed
their winds since time began.
Along the rivers and
through the verdant leas,
The footprints of our shared journey—
With the birds, the fish,
and the silent herds—
Remain etched upon the earth.
O, Seeker of inner bliss!
Shed the veils that cloud your sight;
Savor the world, and
bid Nature enter your soul.

8

The age when the wild was tamed,
The long strides and
swift runs in search of green pastures.
The memory of hands
kneading the earth into vessels,
And the lingering taste of water
Sipped from the hollow of a dried gourd.

The child bound to her back,

Memories of swaying like
a rider, clutching her tresses;
In his hand, a hatchet of stone,
In hers, a sturdy pestle.

The mind is furrowed with
the wrinkles of the past,
Layer upon layer,
the folds within the brain—
The craftsmanship of
a million years of labor,
The mastery of Nature
building itself, piece by piece.

If one grasps his essence,
is the essence of humanity revealed?
If one grasps her essence,
is the secret of Nature known?

9

He invites conflict;
She offers a loving embrace.
He seeks to conquer;

She cradles the world in her lap.
He proclaims, "I am the father who begot you!"

She gently strokes his head and whispers,
"But was it not I who gave you birth?"

He runs a race toward an unknown end;
She takes root where
she stands and becomes a tree,

Becoming Nature, becoming a Wanderer of the spirit,

---

10

His wanderings led him along the rivers,
Over the mountains, following the herds,
Through the lush green meadows,
Singing in collective harmony...

Gradually, step by step...
A journey from the flesh toward the sky,
Into the realms of fancy, to the distant peaks,
And down into the valleys—
a quest for reasons unknown.
A sojourn that forgot
That the mind is but a part of the body...

In this wandering, what are these veils
Between the mind and the frame?
Why such a vast chasm?
Why does the mind ponder so? Why does it race?
Why does the heart throb in response?
Forsaking the body, embracing thought alone—
They believed that to think is to prove one's very existence.

But they were like the palms and the coconut trees,

Growing tall, yet never learning the grace of bending low.
To climb them, one must tread upon them with force;
To hold on, one must intertwine with them tightly.
The supremacy of imagination and thought—
That is the heart of the matter.

If you labor, then you are truly alive—
Work is the proof of existence.

11

As DNA, the entire past manifests in the present;
Growth, evolution, the latent, and the expressed—
The past flowing into the now...

The traces do not vanish so quickly,
Nor do they fade in haste.
Within this body lie the imprints of a hundred generations;
In our DNA, the evolutions of a thousand years...

The essence is known, but what of the form?
What of this frame, and the existence of these crafts?
What were their primal stirrings, and where lies their DNA?

It was your great-grandfather who
forged the discus for Krishna;
He crafted the crown, and
the bow and arrow for Arjuna.
It was your ancestors who wove
the infinite veil for Draupadi,
Preserving humanity in the
face of the crowded court.
Krishna crossed the river in the very
basket woven by your matriarch;
And was it not the bow fashioned
by your forefather that Sita lifted?

Every flavor of the grain upon that plate
Was harvested by the sweat of your kinsmen’s brow.
As years turned into centuries, as seasons passed,
As they transformed the wild woods into fertile fields...

Age advanced. Skill blossomed.
Wealth of herds grew. Wealth of minerals increased.
The tools of production multiplied,
And the bonds of production evolved.

Your forefathers, your ancestors, your matriarchs—
They are the creators of all wealth,
the architects of society.

The Solar dynasty, the Lunar dynasty,
and many more
Fill the epics and the myths. All through history...
But where is the history of your people—
the ones who upheld them,
who made them win?
Without them, those above would not exist.
Without them, there would be
no history, no legends,
No kings, no kingdoms,
no monarchies, and no wars.

They are the true creators,
the builders of wealth and craft;
They are the ones to be remembered
with the first light of dawn...
For they are the humans,
the builders of human society.

12

The past may breathe life
into this very moment,
Or it may lie cold and lifeless.
The past is not in some distant land;
The past never dies.
What continues in memory and in practice is the past.
It follows you as culture,
Born again and again, growing within you.
Caste, too, is a remnant of the past,
And religion, a shadow of what has been.

Class, too, is a remnant of the past—
Traces of bygone eras...
born from the echoes of what once was.
Does the past lead you upon its path?
Or do you command the past with your own stride?

Have you bound yourself with the chains of yesterday,
Turning the past into a millstone that anchors you in place?
Does the past dictate your present hour?
Does it descend upon you, unbidden and unwanted...
Swarming around you like a gathering mist?

Are you raising new monuments
Upon the ruins of the old?
If the past is the seed, then the present is the tree—
And what of the future? Is it the blossom or the fruit?
From the past into the present,
From the present toward the future—
It is you who walks this road.
This sojourn belongs to you alone.

Only when one link yields can the chain extend;
Only by breaking the shackles of old
Is it possible to forge a path ahead.
Are those ancient chains truly the
ornaments you choose to wear?

Language, too, is a remnant of the past,
And thought, a shadow of what has been.
Even life itself is a legacy of the bygone—
The past is history, it is culture;
It is evolution, it is science;
An epic poem of all that was.

13

The past constantly pulls the present
Back into its depths, through
culture and sentiment...
Yet, whenever we contemplate,
the past, it becomes the present.

They weep for the crumbling of ancient values,
Longing for things that vanished long ago.
Nothing shall endure—not even the body.
Wealth remains not, nor does status.
Grandeur fades, and kingdoms crumble.
Even the soul, even the inner-self, is part of the flow.

Everything is fleeting; change is the only law of nature.
Childhood into youth, youth into age.
Age into death—change is inevitable.
We are all but threads in the tapestry of history...
'We are but fragments of evolution itself...'
The present moment passes,
Shedding the past like a serpent's skin,
The present marches ever forward.

---

All that passes leaves a trace behind,
Enduring as history, as the evolution of time;
Who we are today shall be
the history of tomorrow.

Some believe they know everything;
Others strive to learn all they can.
Indeed, some possess a clevernes
that knows no bounds.
Man yearns for the harvest of a fresh day,
Yet clings to stale thoughts that lead him astray.
Is a fresh bath possible with stagnant waters?
To bathe again in the very water of yesterday...!
Can new lives be forged from ancient beliefs?

A bus that merely circles back to its start,
And archaic dogmas—
they are one and the same.
Old beliefs only lead us back
into the shadows of the past;
They recreate the past,
masquerading as the present.
When practice remains stagnant,
and beliefs unyielding,
Life itself stands still.

In the currents of the present, to
know not how to swim is a peril to life.
For a new life... a new practice..
a new consciousness...
Action alone is not enough;
mere longing is not sufficient.
May your eternal consciousness
be your daily ablution...
New beliefs, new theories...
a New World.
A new culture...
the building of a new society.

14

"O Lord! They know not what they do..."
The fruit kindles the flame of desire,
Creating the illusion that desire itself is life.

O Mother! You are all the splendor of
Nature, the very essence of it.
To bear a child, to nurture life,
is but the evolution of Nature itself.
Motherhood is the supreme boon
bestowed by the natural world.

She is a victor.
Injustice was meted out to her;
the world knows this truth.
Even those who wronged her
have confessed their guilt.
It is true she was defeated in the battle of life,
True that she lost her authority and her pride;
True that an irremediable injustice befell her.
Yet, no matter who speaks of it,
she refuses to accept that word.
For her, to admit they wronged her
Is to acknowledge their dominion over her soul.
She holds them close within her, a
for they are her own;
"No wrong was done to me," she declares.
Hers is a mother’s mind,a
a heart overflowing with maternal grace.
"What was etched in my fate has come to pass," she says.
To convince her that
she was a victim of injustice
Remains beyond the power of anyone.
For she, and she alone,
has authored her own destiny.

I am the mother, the sister, and the wife;
The cherished daughter, the grandmother, the matriarch...
None can defeat me, nor can anyone ever replace me.
Centuries have slipped away—
And in the blink of an eye,
she has triumphed over life,
Standing tall as a victor.
She won her own life, and in doing so,
secured his victory too.

To her, life is hope...
Life is the very order of creation...
Is life merely the turning of days
into weeks, and weeks into months?
Yesterday and today are never the same...
Between the past and the present,
change is only natural.
The sapling of yesterday is the tree of today,
and the mighty giant of tomorrow.
What was yesterday, is not here today;
and what is today, shall vanish by tomorrow.

Nothing is eternal;
None shall walk with you until the very end.
That is the philosophy of renunciation,
the way of the ascetic.
But the philosophy of living
is different—life is hope.
These yearnings, these affections—
Without such illusions, there is no life at all.
Ideals, intimacies, and bonds—
In a sense, they are all but dreams and illusions...

Is not this very life transient and fleeting?
And yet, the daily labor for bread
and sustenance remains essential.

So too, are bonds, friendships, and loves essential;
For a life devoid of these is but a withered tree!

15

To labor is a necessity of life.
Friendship, love, compassion, and altruism—
Living in harmony is a necessity of life.
Is there no desire within the act of labor?
Does it only seem absent while
all is saturated with longing?
Indeed! Desires radiate
like beams of light;
Like the brilliance of rays,
so are our yearnings.
Is not desire another name
for hope, for passion?
And is not hope the very essence of life?
A necessity! An inevitability!
Even in a creature without desire,
In a nature without a defined goal,
Evolution remains a natural law.

16

Why do you gaze upon him?
Why do you question her?
He dwells within you.
Without knowing yourself,
Without looking into your own soul,
You search for truth through the eyes of others.
Why did he weep?
Even he knows not the reason for his own tears.

He knows not why she smiles;
For she is the companion of
Nature, she is Nature itself.

17

The stomach's ache belongs to one,
But the poem upon it is written by another.
Hunger belongs to one,
Yet the verse upon it is penned by another.
If hunger itself were to become poetry,
If the ache itself were to find its voice in rhyme—
Then would emerge the true
song of the people, the lore of the folk.

Like, a commodity fashioned for sale,
They paint the chaos of poverty
in hues of beauty...
Sketching it again and again
until the squalor is idealized.
They turn such anarchy into a culture,
And transform the people into mere dependents.
Yet, it is this very chaos that shall
question the kingdom of silence.

They only know how to question the 'other';
Those who have never
learned to seek the truth within
Are the ones who point fingers at the world.
It is a strange irony—
that those who yearn to be rulers
Use questioning as their tool;
For as the masters of tomorrow,
they are the ones who must answer.
So, first, know thy own soul...

They remain stagnant where they stand,
Forsaking the spirit of self-responsibility.
Unable to inspire others
toward self-refinement,
They render them dependent instead...
oh, such 'great souls' they are!
They make them slaves to their surroundings,
Turning them into mere dependents of society.
Those who were meant to be guiding lights,
Are reduced to mendicants in the name of sympathy.

In this manner, he steals away the heart.
A sanctuary for chaos...
a throne for the spirit of dependency;
Tactics of war and
secrets remain their sole domain.
They let no one draw near
to their inner sanctum.
Two swords cannot abide
within a single sheath;
They may hang side by side upon the wall,
Yet it is said that once drawn,
they shall pierce one another.

---

They are the victims, the oppressed,
the defeated leaders—
The Ekalavyas of the present age.
After imparting every skill and wisdom,
It is their habit to sever the thumb of the disciple;
For with two fingers,
the student might surpass the master,
Since the master himself possesses but one.

18

Just as a mother spoils her children
with excessive indulgence,
They spoil the people with
their overwhelming 'efficiency.'
They do not ask the people
to cease their drinking;
they question why the opportunity
to drink exists at all.

They cannot govern their own minds,
Yet they call for the state to vanish;
Then again, they demand that the state must rule.
Amidst these contradictions lie stark paradoxes—
Where opportunism is born
Under the guise of the people's cause.

When you question the question itself,
the inquiry vanishes,
And their true, unmasked nature is revealed.
This sojourn lives in the gaze...
and in the imagination...
Even the distant hills that
lie beyond the eye's reach
Become a beautiful sojourn
within the mind's eye.

19

Inheritance wears many faces...
The inheritance of Valmiki is the Ramayana.
The legacy of Vyasa is the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita.
The wealth of Buddha... the estate of Ambedkar...
Is the profound wisdom they bestowed.

The inheritance of the Kakatiyas lives in their artistry—
In the temples, the fortresses, and the life-giving lakes.
The treasure of philosophers like Aristotle,
And the legacy of Acharya Nagarjuna...
Endures through the passage of generations.

Kaloji’s legacy is my own
'Na Godava'—my inner struggle;
My stride and my conduct are my true wealth.
The breadth of my reach is my inheritance,
And the fire of my inspiration is my estate.

The sentence is a quest, a vessel of inquiry;
The sentence is an awakening, a guiding master.

20

To those who transmute waste into fertile soil,
To those who purge the waters of their toxic burdens;
To those who inhale the stagnant air
and breathe back the spirit of life;
To those who take the earth and the rain,
And offer in return the fruit, the bloom,
The shade of leaves, and the gift of sustenance;
To those who drink in the mire and
pour forth the clarity of pure water;
To the termites, the insects,
and the unseen microscopic lives;
To the trees, the fish, and all creatures of the deep—
To such a Mother Nature, I bow in reverence.

A sojourn through the woods,
a sojourn amidst the folk—
A journey into the very heart of Nature...
Travels... excursions... and delights...
Pleasure trips to sacred shrines...
Visitations... all of this...
Is it to conquer the pangs of loneliness?
Or to journey deeper into the soul's solitude?

Loneliness is one thing,
Solitude is quite another.
To give life to the written word,
To gaze into the landscapes of the mind,
One must seek the embrace of solitude.
Forsaking all, leaving the world behind,
To dwell in that singular moment—
Within those dreams, those thoughts,
And in that luminous world...
To simply wander.

Within the collective,
in the shared breath of life,
Yet deep within the self, in sacred solitude;
In the super-conscious,
in thought, in the heights of fancy,
In silence, in the void,
.in the stillness of the mind;
In tranquility, within the inner-consciousness—
There bloom the arts of creation, the sciences,
And the wonders of technology.

The journey of the wanderer
is not to flee from life,
But to circle the world;
To embrace Nature and the tides of humanity.
To truly know the world,
One must wander through its many paths.
A sojourn, a heroic sojourn—
Life itself is but a single journey,
A vast tour, a grand sojourn;
The sentence is the essence
of thought, a philosophy in itself.

A sojourn through the woods, a sojourn amidst the folk—
A journey into the very heart of Nature...Travels... excursions... and delights...
Pleasure trips to sacred shrines...
Visitations... all of this...
Is it to conquer the pangs of loneliness
Or to journey deeper into the soul's solitude?Loneliness is one thing,
Solitude is quite another.
To give life to the written word,
To gaze into the landscapes of the mind,
One must seek the embrace of solitude.
Forsaking all, leaving the world behind,
To dwell in that singular moment—
Within those dreams, those thoughts,
And in that luminous world...
To simply wander.
Within the collective, in the shared breath of life,

Yet deep within the self, in sacred solitude;
In the super-conscious, in thought, in the heights of fancy,
In silence, in the void, in the stillness of the mind;
In tranquility, within the inner-consciousness—
There bloom the arts of creation, the sciences,
And the wonders of technology.

The journey of the wanderer is not to flee from life,
But to circle the world;
To embrace Nature and the tides of humanity.
To truly know the world,
One must wander through its many paths.
The azure sky... in how many bursts of light...
Those stars, thousands of leagues away...

Yet they offer their radiance eternally.
If the vision of the eye grows dim,
One knows not if those stars even exist.
No matter how faint a star may be,
It continues to bestow its light;
No matter the vastness of the distance,
Its inspiration reaches us still.
Ever since she was chosen as the Queen of the Universe,
She has remained a global beacon of beauty,
Spreading inspiration far and wide.
The splendors of that 'Black Lily' were idealized,
Becoming a source of profound inspiration;

They attained the heights of empowerment.
When that 'Black Sovereign' became the leader,
His people found their spirit,
And the entire world was inspired.
That Ambedkar was a man of truly beautiful countenance;
That Jyotirao Phule was a man of truly beautiful countenance;
Like the eternal stars, they continue to shine their light upon us.

He stands as a conqueror of the world;
Yet, nothing devoid of inspiration can truly become universal,
And that which fails to inspire can never span the globe.
No one who lacks the power to kindle a spirit can ever reach the world’s heart.
Of what use is the influence of a victor who breathes no inspiration?
What is the worth of billions in wealth if it brings no solace to others?
Of what avail is boundless power if it offers neither kindness nor a spark of light?
When values shift, and beliefs are transformed—
The very nature of being changes.
Inspiration is the child of values; value is the fruit of inspiration.
Value is born of perspective; value is anchored in faith.
Humanity is defined by the culture we practice,
And our thoughts are sculpted by the perspective we embrace.

Nature speaks in the language of silence;
Every tree and every mound converses through the stillness.

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