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The people of Ayodhya
Lit up the entire city
To welcome Rama the victor.
It was then.
Now,
For an individual like me,
The 'Festival of Lights'
Is to know the flame within
That glows eternally
So that "I" too may attain
Victory over Ravana
- The symbol of evil -
That also dwells within
Like a shadow
And manifests in the form of
Anger, Carnality, Attachment, Greed and Enmity.
Unless I as an individual
Am not able to conquer these passions
Until then
I cannot truly celebrate
Diwali -
'The Festival of Lights'.
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Comments on this Poem
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Your poem reminds me of some very significant dreams about light and enlightenment I had as a 12 year old child with a severe fever. In one of those dreams my kin and I were walking away from a beautiful city of lights. In my locality, the city was Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the business capital of Canadian oil production and consumption. There was a great peace in the dream, when I woke up I wanted desperately to be back in the dream. We were walking away from a city of lights into the darkness on a four lane highway with no cars to be seen; no cars coming from the city of lights, nor going toward it.
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A very appropriate reading of the Diwali festival and its lost symbolism in commercialised India.
Different sensibility, different expression, different thought process---poet Rajender Krishan.
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13 Nov. 2012
TO: Mr. Rajender Krishan
Very much close to Tagore's-
"Timiro rater Oi Gagaganer Dwipgulire
Hemantika, korlo gopon anchol ghire ghire
Ghare ghare Dak pathalo
Dipali tar jalao alo...."
Unfortunately, I never translated this song before but let me try it in a crude way -
"In the dark night, the lights of the sky (i.e. the stars)
Hides Hemanta* draping with her scarf; (* season that preludes
the Winter)
Sends Her call to every home
Light up the lamps of Diwali.
Light up thy own...."
Of course the Poet suggests enlightenment of our mind.
Rajat Das Gupta
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Honestly, if Life is where the innate self merges in truth, and, lit flower pots, as ever, continue to shine sparklers of temptation, the struggle, is sparring for ever!
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