Re-born

If each morning were spring

And every evening autumn

I would be a wayward leaf

Born with the dawn

Dying at dusk

Were each night a serenade

And every morning a finale

I would be the crescendo

Soaring with the moon

Fading with the dawn

If the sea were a poet

And the waves its verses

I would be an unborn fancy

Awaiting release

From fathomless blues.

Ranjit Powar

October 31, 2018

A Wake-up Call

With apologies to Rabindranath Tagore for the temerity of penning a travesty of his wistful poem “ Where the mind is without fear….”

Seventy years hence

We paid with blood to keep our tryst with destiny

Somewhere down the road, we lost our way

Into a dark forest of untruth, terror and barbarianism

Minds caved in to fear and few heads can be held high

Knowledge is distorted

 The country is being broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Words come from depths of darkness

 There is a tireless striving towards power and gain

The clear stream of reason has long lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of regressive habits.

The mind is led backward by parochialism

Into ever-narrowing thought and action

How many Augusts more, Gurudev,

Will it take for my county to awake?

I want to celebrate my Independence….

An Assault on Dissenting Voices

A poet, Surjit Garg, was assaulted in Anandpur Sahib today. He is said to offend both Himdu and Sikh hardliners with his writings. I have never read his compositions. They may be offensive to very many and trash to others; but taking over the right and authority to punish people who do not follow your school of thought is a highly worrying trend. Whether it is regarding cow protection, inter-caste, inter-religious marriages, Valentine celebrations, dress styles of women or political affiliations, we are regressing to a gunda state where the law seems to have become a pillion rider to unconstitutional forces. And mind you, it is the establishment that is setting a precedence. Arun Shourie warned against subversion of freedom of scribes in the Press Club yesterday. It's not only about freedom in a certain quarter of society; this malaise, once it sets in, is bound to spread to all walks. Yesterday at the rally for "Batein Aman KI", I noticed that not one of the speakers would openly condemn the recent crack down on poet Varavara Rao, lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj, activists Arun Farreira, Vernon Gonsalves and Gautam Navlakha. They made veiled references to the arrests and hoped that "you understand what I am saying." I don't. Stand up to be counted now. Scribes and activists are the voice of society. Some may be wrong some times, but still deserve to be dealt with in accordance to law. And draconian laws need to go.