New year yaa raha hae

To see,See the Kash blooms,White Kash bloomsswaying,Swaying in the windBy the riversideSo many, so at a glanceSwaying,Swaying and soothing,Soothing to the soulAnd charmingUnderThe half-cloudy,Half-sunny skiesThe Kash,Kash bloomsWhite beards like,White hair likeKash,Kash bloomsGrassy and stalked.

Playing with dust,Under the sunUnmindful ofWhat she had,What had not,Playing with dustUnder the strong sunThat poor girl,Poor Dalit girlInto the hamlet,Hamlet homeAnd the courtyardAll around the place,The open space adjacent to itThat Dalit girl,Poor Dalit girlHalf-fed,Half-fed and half-clothed,The child,Child of povertySmiling,Smiling sweetly.

As poetry is poetry,Written words,Spoken words.Only poetry is not it all,As the poets create it not all,Poetry is photography,The poet sees them and borrows fromAnd the mason too not less than the poets,The architects and sculptors.To me, the little-little temples, the terracotta templesAre themselves the great works of art and architecture,The old-old temples,Centuries-old, made from…

That too not with goatee beards,But with the French-cut beards,With a little bit of on the chin,Suited and bootedAnd in the coat and pants,Rushdie,Sir Salman Rushdie.A book for children, it is for Zafar,Whom he meets after tumultuous timeAnd tells about story-telling,The power of imaginationAs applied by Rashid in telling HarounAbout the gift of the gab,The…

The statue,They too are the GandhiansOf some sortWillingly or unwillinglyAs without knowing Gandhi and his principles,One cannot criticize,If we look into their hearts,We shall find it to our surpriseThat they too are the lovers of Gandhi.

Scattered across, littered overA vast tract of land,The muddy houses, straw-thatched,Hatched with bamboo briars,The hearths burning,I mean the earthen ovens,The nights solitary and secludedWithout the lamps.Many going half-fed, half-clothed,Sleeping on the muddy floorOn a date-leaf woven matOr if available, on the bamboo rope-cot,Passing the daysIn faith and belief,In utter submission to God,Praying to the Snake-God,Offering…