Planet In Peril--poet's Lament

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Planet in Peril Poet’s Lament

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THE VISIONARY OF NUCLEAR-FREE, NON-VIOLENT WORLD ORDER,

SEER-STATESMAN, THE ILLUSTRIOUS SON OF INDIA,

LATE SHRI RAJIV GANDHI FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA

WHOSE IMAGE SHALL NOT FADE

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Planet in Peril Poet’s Lament

Madan G. Gandhi

GANDHI EARTH VISION FOUNDATION H-23/16, DLF PHASE-I GURGAON-122002, HARYANA (INDIA)

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© GANDHI EARTH VISION FOUNDATION First Published 2004 Price : Rs. 250/- ($40) ISBN NO. : 81-88871-01-X

Written by

Madan G. Gandhi

Published by:

Gandhi Earth Vision Foundation H-23/16 DLF Phase-I Gurgaon-122002. Haryana (India) Phone: 0124-5054392 e-Mail :

[email protected]

Printed & Typeset by BMC Datasoft (P.) Ltd., New Delhi e-mail: [email protected]

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CONTENTS

Self’s Orchestra

11

A Courtesan

12

Holocaust Rehearsals

13

Crashing Heavens

14

A Flaming Heath

15

The Blind End

16

Suicide

17

The Border

18

My Assault

19

An Eerie Silence

20

Catastrophic Flood

21

A No-Win Game

22

Even The Skeleton

23

The Perennial Sermon

24

The Acrid Smoke

25

Never-Healing Wound

26

I Explode

27

Columns Of Smoke

28

Chaos On Wheels

29

VIII

National Pride

30

Cancerous War

31

All-Deserted

32

Mines All The Way

33

A Zero-Sum Game

34

The Lurid Light

35

Nausea

36

The Blasted Future

37

The Charred Heavens

38

No Sun, None!

39

Man-Made Hell

40

A Raving Sea

41

A New Crop

42

The Futility

43

A Year

44

Flying Doves

45

The Splendour

47

The Luminous Web

49

The Aftermath

50

Burnt-Out Planet

51

Dazed Sleep

52

White Blood

53

IX

Fractured Dreams

54

War's Deluge

55

My Murderer's Face

56

The Invisible Jury

57

Erupting Volcano

60

A Frozen Moment

61

Dying Man’s Declaration

62

Wailing Bangles

63

Nuclear Winter

64

A Frozen Sky

65

Shredded Glory

66

How Long?

67

Treaties

68

Freedom’s Flag

69

Compassion’s Rain

70

Ember Dawn

71

Every Mother

72

The Precipice

73

Brown Bread

74

Awakened People

75

Your Calligraphy

76

Nuclear Fire

77

X

Sun-Gazer

78

Anguished Cry

79

Collective Homicide

80

The Poet

83

Sadist Maestro

84

Man

85

The Same Essence

86

The Ordained Mission

87

Bone –Weapons

89

Roll It Green

90

Cosmic Red

91

Beyond Recognition

92

Life-Swallows

93

A Mission To Redeem

94

Son Of Ganga

96

Confluence

97

Forever Green

98

Fulfillment

99

Earth-Citizen

100

Earth-Citizenry

101

I Salute Them All

102

Can A Poet Die At All?

104

XI

SELF’S ORCHESTRA The lotuses bloom, the vision, appareled in spring, smiles and sings. Attuned to self’s orchestra, I go blessing every being. Enter the snake: withered the leaf, stained the petal, shattered my quiet.

XII

A COURTESAN A courtesan entices the innocent into a bear-hug, whips up communal passions in the profligacy of desire. Inside my skull hellish fires rage as I gamble for the throne. A witch lures the hordes to stoke the cauldron, to taste the ultimate power. On my face the red shame not to be washed.

XIII

HOLOCAUST REHEARSALS Daggers at our neck, cannons at our back, rockets on our head, how long do we go on with our holocaust rehearsals? How long can we sleep in doomsday dread, in balance of terror, in MAD syndrome? This self-deception, this dope dream, how long shall it last? Where are we heading? Does anyone know the direction and the flow? On what precipice bending? Doesn’t the flow portend the tragic, fated end of all that in centuries fruitioned; a sudden annihilation? Are we going to begin again, have we come full circle, is this the end of all endings, the point whence we set out in primal times? Peace love and well-being of all, the goals our ancients cherished went about spreading the message in every corner of the world. But could not persuade those puffed with powered greed the consequences of clashes can spell a permanent nuclear doom.

XIV

CRASHING HEAVENS Navigating the globe, voyaging in space, what has he brought— star wars and nuclear winters. Every advance is not progress, every discovery not a blessing but a mixed fare hiding a nightmare, kicking up a hornet’s nest. What will you say of him who caused the Chernobyl, the Bhopal, the explosions in the gulf, the depredations in Iraq? It is he who in a fit shall push the button, bring down the heavens crashing and unleash doomsday flames.

XV

A FLAMING HEATH

The owl sits on the top, we shall surely come to grief; the storm is a prelude to imminent doom. The theory of mutual-deterrence, of mutually assured destruction, but pleas for precarious peace, a prelude to doomsday siren. Blooming youth is pushed down into the jaws of death, spring-eyed garden turns into a flaming heath. The war to end all wars will be fought not with cannons but with star weapons.

XVI

THE BLIND END

It is the edge of the perilous ridge; “Withdraw,” I say “Withdraw”, the fall will be headlong. No star for a witness, no songster for a dirge; the end will be blind, leaving no trace behind. This way lies instant doom, the abyss of gaping gloom, night of total annihilation, caused by nuclear radiation. Only the fraternal bond will hold amidst clanging of creeds, a war-free world will come to birth through consciousness of common earth. The die is cast, hell or holocaust; only a seer’s wisdom can avail to pull man back.

XVII

SUICIDE

Where to escape, pollution everywhere: on high peaks of snow, in outer space, above and below. Where to hide: all roads lead to suicide.

XVIII

THE BORDER

Boarder is a narrow strip along a steep edge, a line that divides safe and unsafe, us from them, in a state of constant transition; its denizens, the prohibited and the forbidden.

XIX

MY ASSAULT I tend my piece of land where my dead are buried, shorten the grass, trim the shoots, pile up the soil to level the lawn. I shear every sheep, denude every grove, despoil every garden. Half the world I have laid waste, the other half is waiting for my assault; soon I shall finish my mission turn bounteous earth into a wasteland. I have found new pastures in other spheres, I go colonizing in advance to shift well in time. So, I am complacent to deforestation, ecocide, wholesale pollution, death of the ocean. Absolutely dead to the planet in peril, what may befall my children!

XX

AN EERIE SILENCE

Before the curtain rings down and an eerie silence envelops; turn the floodlights on exposing the monster brandishing its claws. The bloodshot eyes, the helmeted head, the big-booted thud, sirens, batons, blasts, explosions. Unsettle every equation, break every syllable of the universe.

XXI

CATASTROPHIC FLOOD One day, you will rue the dreadful deed when gloom shall overcast the sky yellow smog clamp the blackout. Catastrophic floods inundate the green pastures and dales, turning orchards into desolate waste. The chill blight of winter strikes at the very root killing life in the womb, none there to hear your lament.

XXII

A NO-WIN GAME Civilization on the rack, the wheel of fire in top gear, no hope of respite. This black and white, this flash point of racial dissension, this fuse for annihilation in the name of man’s liberation, of ushering him into freedom’s dawn in equality’s sun. Anger and hatred, the propellers of mortal destiny, of nations and empires. Mind-blowing, nerve-racking, competition in all spheres is a no-win game with stakes so heavy. Desecrate monuments, pagodas and cathedrals. Train cannons at every treasure, indiscriminately on everyone.

XXIII

EVEN THE SKELETON Stop mining the earth, shooting of stars in space; once the button is pressed, the cosmos will be blown off. Who is over there hiding weapons? Smuggling arms over the land and sea? Targeting churches and mosques, habitats and hospitals. One day even the hidden skeletons will explode.

XXIV

THE PERENNIAL SERMON Where are those hallowed seats of love and peace where lights shone to proclaim the perennial sermon? All lost in the fury, be it Bamiyaan or Bethlehem Sinai or Jerusalem. We now hear gun’s ceaseless roar, ear-splitting explosions and cannon’s thunder.

XXV

THE ACRID SMOKE A non-violent nuclear-free world the chant of a battle-weary man, the dream of everyone. The crusade for a war-free world will go on. The enemy of man are they who mouth pleas for the bomb, trade in death, let loose the hounds, guillotine the sons of peace. This acrid smoke chokes my throat, drowns my affection in the cacophony of bombs.

XXVI

NEVER-HEALING WOUND The cannon balls flew, with them my child too. True to my grain, stoically I accept it. But it leaves a wound that shall never heal, a void never to be filled though I conquer the world.

XXVII

I EXPLODE

I explode in my shell, my radio-active waves pierce through granite walls, spread in all directions, encompass the globe. All efforts to contain me, fail.

XXVIII

COLUMNS OF SMOKE

These columns of smoke curling up the sky are no remains of offerings, no unaccepted oblations. These are no fires lit for sacrifice but giant flares that will swallow the entire. Having engulfed the earth they swirl and whirl to embrace the roof of the world.

XXIX

CHAOS ON WHEELS This rock and roll, these earthquake-like tremors, of rolling skies, of flaming seas. The apocalypse, cosmic cataclysm, the elemental fission, in one sweep. Beyond shock waves of pre-genesised darkness, blazing chaos on wheels exploding in butterflies.

XXX

NATIONAL PRIDE What choice: exploded hopes, blasted dreams, before and after— the bellowing cannons. A stern command: the horror of gallant men in battlelines shouting “kill”, “kill”; the vultures hovering over, the blood-dripping skies. These warring hordes, mouthing prayers for peace, hiding weapons in their sleeves, opt for hell for good reasons: to safeguard honour, dignity and freedom, enduring justice and self defence all that goes with national pride.

XXXI

CANCEROUS WAR A gnawing cancerous war eating up relentlessly every fibre, every cell, cutting the lifeline, blasting the whole. Cities deserted, stench of the decomposed fouling the spring. No more warm winds, no more splashes of colour, no more fields and pastures. No streak of vermilion in the smog-filled sky. A nuclear blast, all-killing its sweep, turns earth into cinders singeing the very roots of life.

XXXII

ALL-DESERTED

The earth hit by thunderbolt, seas by radiation space by pollution. Where to go this night? All-deserted, no light. They have blinded my sun, they have denuded my earth.

XXXIII

MINES ALL THE WAY

Kick stones and lick dust, mines all the way. Gallop on steely steed on acres of hate, kick up smoke to choke the aged and infirm. Slit throat of valiant sons, bombard hospitals and hovels of the poor, maim and kill children strike at the mother’s womb in the never-ending war. Explode all dreams, shatter all plans, create hell, burn and be burnt.

XXXIV

A ZERO-SUM GAME

The mountains are tumbling, the big bang is rumbling; gravitation shall not hold, the earth is deathlike, cold. The elements are in disarray the world is on the rack, hopes have gone hiding behind the wreckage of stars. Is it the implosion of the sun, an utter disintegration? The planets explode and fly above each other. Who wins, who loses, in this zero-sum game; all consigned to flames.

XXXV

THE LURID LIGHT

This brittle sound, these sorties in air, this din and roar, these martial columns. Crystal lake, placid calm, now, a boiling cauldron. Chemical waste corrodes the veins and arteries of the earth-mother. The smoking guns fly past the coffins, lay waste the Eden. Snakelike hiss, lurid light, of the cemetery. Gray sticky clouds raise an iron shroud around the dying sun.

XXXVI

NAUSEA Biogenic corruption corrodes ants-like eating up a universe. Nothing save the ashen gloom, the earth denuded of its bloom. Putrid smell of vegetation, the stench of phosphorescence, ghost-like permeation of gaseous poison. Nausea invades my being, no more the forest green for me to laze in.

XXXVII

THE BLASTED FUTURE

Bullet-ripped corpses, legless, armless, bodies, littered all over. Utter blackout. Wounded, maimed, paraplegic, uncared, shuffling about for light, in darkness. Incapacitated for ever, riveted to a wheel-chair, artificially breathing, intravenously fed. The blasted future jeering at man’s bloated pride, inching his way to quick disposal.

XXXVIII

THE CHARRED HEAVENS

Who caused these mutations in the heart of elements, the chemistry of heavens changed, the face of the sun blackened? The skin of space singed, the heavens charred, the earth-mother defaced. Letting loose a million Hiroshimas, unleashing leopards all over the space. Who’s it clapping come with her noose to squeeze life out of the cosmos?

XXXIX

NO SUN, NONE! This total blackout, this blood-splattered gloom, a prelude to closing-in of doom. No flicker, no trace of life in the heart of space; only yellow clouds on the prowl. Smog-enveloped sky, nothing visible: no sun, none!

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MAN-MADE HELL

A hell here, a hell there, hell all around, man-made hell. By atom’s radiation by nuclear waste, by gaseous poison. by fission’s chain reactions. Hell of potash, the kicking up of dust, in sand dunes and rocks, in deep seas and caverns. Shelling and bombing, the green belt, prairies and stone-henges pagodas and pyramids.

XLI

A RAVING SEA The locust floods of mushrooming clouds enveloping the outer space encircle the earth and heaven. Some contact leukemia, some cancer. The contagion afflicts the genes, coursing down many a generation; the poison percolating the primal fount. No place immune to the poison of radiation; toxic soot covering the horizon, screens the life-giving sun. The sky hit by yellow cloud becomes a raving sea swallowing globes and galaxies, the earth draped in a black shroud. Swirling flames envelop the heavens; a million tongues scorpions-like leap all over the splintered space. The planets fall one by one. The earth by deadly blasts hit, by fission and chain reactions, sterility strikes the burning waste, all consigned to deadly fate. A million beasts of prey, winging towards the ill-fated e-bay in doomsday-like swoop deface the earth-mother’s face.

XLII

A NEW CROP

Why wars, why spill innocent blood, who wins and at what cost? Is God a global super-cop whose writ runs on the weak, who wields his baton on the meek, who sides with the power-puffed proud? Shall my restless soul ever have respite from the cannon fire, blasts and holocausts— after or before I fall asleep? Shall the earth-mother ever conceive a new crop of genomes, the blasted womb ever deliver another breed of homo sapiens?

XLIII

THE FUTILITY They fought for their nation, their womenfolk, their children, their empire, their flag, their freedom. But their dead sons and the coffins brought home speechlessly tell the futility of it all. Their twisted bones, their battered limbs, give a lie to their claims, their alibis and no-win games.

XLIV

A YEAR

A year of crises, fire-fighting throughout, five thousand years’ civilizations decimated in a few hours by marauders at large in uniform, gulf burning still, half-extinguished flames mocking at the prospects of peace. A year of defeat for the brokers of peace, conciliation taking a back seat, war-mongers thriving everywhere. A year of depression, of ethnic strife, of statist suppression of people’s movements, of betrayals and blackmails, of diplomatic cant and deceit, of coup d’etats and insurrections disguised as revolutions.

XLV

FLYING DOVES

The flying doves flag off warheads; hurl thunderbolts, wrapped in love balloons, on neighbours’ roofs. Dismantle a wall, dig afresh trenches of hate, lay mines on sea and the ground to launch an offensive, to avenge the wrongs of history, to redraw boundaries, to retrieve what was lost to a treacherous king in days of yore. Advance in defense, clear the battle zones of all marauders, to negotiate peace from a point of strength. Distrust who practise double-speak from their forts of hate, cheat the gullible folk with pleas of peace.

XLVI

Dagger-in-cloak solutions— for enduring justice for making the world safe for everyone, for removing the threats of WMD by unilateral preemptive interventions. Score conclusive victory, with death of millions in one swift strike, to make the world free for democracy. Litter it with broken limbs, shattered hopes, ruined lives, maimed and dead rotting in heaps— their way!

XLVII

THE SPLENDOUR

Uniforms in green, shining armours, blazing buttons, march in step to the tune of drummers. Along the streets, along the fields, children throng waving flags. Amidst the cacophony of war, death raining from above, napalm clouds enveloping the skies, screams for shelter rending the air, shattered bodies littered all over. The war-in-action, ghastly, gruesome. Doctors and nurses, ambulances and trucks, foot-sluggers and soldiers, in sweltering summer, in wintry cold, round the clock, in dirt and mud, in snow and fog, through the awful stench, all on duty.

XLVIII

They salvage the remains, bury the dead carry the wounded prayer in their heart tears in their eyes. A singed heart on atom-stained earth, no caller, no call. How can you resurrect a father blown to pieces, a farmer caught in crossfire; how can the earth’s splendour return?

XLIX

THE LUMINOUS WEB Patches have worn thin, the sky wears holes of the size of the earth, the ozone layer is torn. Chaos enters triumphant growls to gulp down the earth, swallow the sun, reduce the sky in a shambles. Who shall weave the luminous web, who shall spin creations; will the sun rise again, will life revive on the earth?

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THE AFTERMATH

A time comes when burying becomes a problem, when there are countless dead and no gravediggers. Winter wind blows making eerie sounds, limbs frozen in grotesque shapes, arms stiffened like the twisted twigs. The earth a wounded snake writhing in pain, the smiling habitat turned into a sepulchre. What respect for the dead, what funeral rites, when the dead outnumber the living in the aftermath of war?

LI

BURNT-OUT PLANET

Lethal flowerbeds nuclear shoots, the cellars bubbling forth poison. Locust clouds enveloping the horizon, the beaming planets sliding into black holes, the chill blasts turn vegetation into cinders. Left-the bent cows and goats, one-eyed monsters and demons,. stalking the burnt-out planet.

LII

DAZED SLEEP

Every crimson sunrise shows up stains of blood, every war-growl drinks up the very spring whence flow the life-giving waters. Every sigh stirs up the memory of a lost son, the warmth of family frozen in the tracks. In dread we sleep in dread we wake up to be lullabied into a dazed sleep. Now no lazing under a tree, no carefree dip in flowing waters, ever on the run for a gasp of fresh air.

LIII

WHITE BLOOD

The bloodstains in the rainbow, in the green and golden the ultraviolet and crimson. The blood turned white. when I killed the son and dropped death on my kinsmen. The culture dashed. Won me the cross. Many times I rolled up my sleeves to eject death on civilian habitats, felled churches and hospitals. A convict, I enter a dark dungeon where nightmares scream, no respite, none.

LIV

FRACTURED DREAMS

Dreams fractured, all profession of peace belied, I sleep in constant dread, palm-pressing my battered head. A part of me paralyzed, I slump into my shroud force-fed by the other half to stay alive. Light breaks out from the shrapnel gloom and I slog through mire in search of elixir. How empty sound the vows of peace, after every war how hollow the victory claims! The earth mined, no spot for a sapling of peace, the stench sickening; all dreams down the drain.

LV

WAR'S DELUGE

The monuments of excellence, . the relics of a civilization’s crown— the pagodas, the pyramids, the towers and trade centers washed away by war's deluge. Shrieks in a burning hell let loose, combustible fires raging infernally, mouthing fear, hate and ire. I feel a wrench at the very thought of war. Orphaned, widowed, children struck dumb, the mother motionless, the dead son in her lap; the all-enveloping smog tightening the noose. Not a sigh or a stir in the wintry vast.

LVI

MY MURDERER'S FACE Hurrying to the holes to breathe poison-free air, away from the stench of dead bodies littered all over with vultures hovering above, the smog clouds swirling and curling up. I scream for succour, amidst the debris I look for a crown; with every cannon burst a cathedral tumbles down. Among the rubble the countless stars, that once twinkled and cheered, in blind stare mock and shock. In their speechless eyes I see my barbarity, my murderer's face.

LVII

THE INVISIBLE JURY My shadow is growing larger, its umbilical cord is becoming invisible and it is seen walking with giant steps encompassing the earth and heaven. I watch it merge into a life-cloud, sink into the Milky Way. A giant fish, leaping up and down, collides against the rim of a fleet on an espionage mission. Writing my name in darkness in lettering of fire, the idea crosses my mind my moment has come. I close my eyes to pray. Suddenly, lifted by a tide, I become part of the longest current sweeping across the waters. I feel I am on some other planet, transported by a light beam. From within the life-cloud someone appears on the screen. Jutting out from a crystal ball, making ‘V’ sign pointing north, suddenly I fall into a spell, my shadow confronts me with a grin: “Are you the one who have devastated the land and the sea, spread pollution everywhere making the planet uninhabitable?”

LVIII

I feel the poison enter my being— my throat choked, my voice lost, my sight blurred. “See this ethereal, exquisitely wrought, silken layer of ozone showing up patches here and there larger than the size of the Atlantic Ocean. Aren’t you the one who punctured it?” The verve of the tone is electrifying. The accumulated guilt of all my sins rises up in my fevered brain, a heavy load weighs me down, I feel utterly down and out. Other shadowy figures join in pointing their bayonets at me. “O God! I am ruined”, I say to myself. Then from the jury someone thunders: “Aren’t you who enacted Cheronobyl and Bhopal? How long have you been in this life-killing trade, making poisonous gases for chemical war, exploding the atom and the nuclei to unleash annihilation on earth and the outer space, to efface life from the cosmic womb? “The scroll of your crimes is too long. Punishment for each one of them is eternal damnation”, the jury thunders. The nightmarish shadows swirl in my brain and I taste the hellish pain.

LIX

I carry a time-bomb tied to my waist, feel like pushing the button to outwit the insistent inquisition but the fear of instant death restrains me. I picture doomsday staring at me. My whole cerebral mechanism, unable to bear the load, breaks down. I suffer brain hemorrhage, go into a coma, but they will not let me die; in an instant they revive. Again I am before the jury, dumbfounded, pleading guilty, unable to defend. A knock at the door wakes me up from my nocturnal session with the invisible jury.

LX

ERUPTING VOLCANO Screaming wasps shooting poisonous strings with computer precision make me swirl up like the erupting volcano. No bay safe for passage, no strip for landing, no field for take-off, no place for a haven. The dove, affrighted, sits behind the wreckage; every jungle on fire, every gulf in flames. No rainbowed visions, no earthly blooms, no ocean orchids all springs polluted. In the debris lie splinters of my dream.

LXI

A FROZEN MOMENT Every time I sip my sadness, it sticks in my throat; my stare gets cranky and I look like a jinn unloosening the lid. Am I the same after my home shelled, my son killed by blast, my father shot? No hand to caress, none there to repair the rot, none to wipe out the scars; no count of the dead in the debris of starts. With freckled flag where to go, all roads mined and the fuse ready to go off! Nothing before or after. A frozen moment have I become awaiting the fall of a hammer.

LXII

DYING MAN’S DECLARATION No more shall I wait. All around the desert closing in. No gesture, no word, bayonets break into my eyes. My prismatic body can no more withstand the chemical combustion. What these changes in the ecosystem the holes, ozone-layer-like, in my skinny coat. I am bleached, asphyxiated; dumb, I write the dying man’s declaration.

LXIII

WAILING BANGLES

The sight of the maimed and dead brought home amidst the beating of drums. The shrieks of babes and women, of wailing bangles— the sobs of vermilioned earth. With every sip of sadness, I drink ale and blood and suffer for my part of the sin how I dragged down the heaven. Pierced by pricks, I can no more sleep; my timid self is gnawed by grievous guilt. Too close, yet too far, to the solution: a convict counting my crimes in a lone cell; a senile, waiting for the call.

LXIV

NUCLEAR WINTER

The fire that burns within moves my heart to sing a song of peace for the war-ravaged world. Only a barren soul dead to human suffering, to ugliness all around, can retain its calm. What avail these inventions that fail to stop emissions of poison, deadly gases that overflow making holes in the ozonic roof? What will happen to the sun, to life on this imperilled earth, who will be there for the dead to mourn if nuclear winter is let in?

LXV

A FROZEN SKY No more can I bear this drama of mortal strife blasts and explosions this burning amphitheatre on wheels. Mother-earth forbids me to destroy the clock and revert to the olden time when we lived from moment to moment. This MAD Syndrome, this cut-throat competition, this balance of terror, if not rolled back, shall spell annihilation. Constant upsetting of eco-balance, the ceaseless churning out of gaseous poisons posing danger to all life on this planet polluting the very spring of life. The scenario of a frozen sky: birds paralyzed in one stroke, animal kingdom struck blind, all Nature gone deaf and dumb. The planetary tabernacle stopping in midair, moon and stars in space transfixed, utter blackout amidst doomsday flames, no sphere swinging to complete a revolution, All strike-force immobilized on the ground, loaded guns and missiles unexploded, all weapons of mass destruction. No war fought, no war won.

LXVI

SHREDDED GLORY

When all is over, the curtain rung down, who a hero, who a villain? Varnish-washed, all look the same. The chips down, the suspense-crammed play turns into a bland narrative. The defended flag of a bygone tribe is consigned to the museum. Every new empire is reared on the shredded glory of a power-drunk war-lord.

LXVII

HOW LONG?

Bled, we bleed burnt, we burn, shot, we shoot friends and foes alike. Stoke racial fire, cultural cauldron, ethnic strife, national wars, one after the other. How long these shibboleths, these political gimmicks, these cloak-dagger skull rites?

LXVIII

TREATIES

All treaties, a piece of paper to be torn sooner rather than later. How can peace prevail when insanity rules the roost, mutual trust takes a back seat, betrayals become the rule? Raise walls and more walls, barricades and bastions of dragon fears and hate. Love is the alchemy to turn war into peace.

LXIX

FREEDOM’S FLAG

Peace has fled, love taken wings, only hate rules the roost. Where to find one’s calm? Where to find a heart that melts at other’s suffering; a soul that embraces all, who bears the stab of racial strife? . When shall the trauma of war give place to order of peace, world rid of hate and fear? When shall freedom’s flag unfurl over land and sea and all walls break for man to be free?

LXX

EVER DEEPENING CRISIS Every twenty five years one more India joins the globe— a big slum. Ever deepening crisis of governance each one’s destiny existentially ordained in a Hobbesian world of predatory competition. Feet burning with heat of mass consumerism, the planet bending backward under overload of exploding population. The cosmic explosion of expectation, the whole earth deficient to meet even one man’s consumerist greed. The modern day leaders Nero-like fiddling with people caught in communal crossfire, the planet smoldering at both ends. No more that green eco-mystical way, a life of sharing, a reverence for life, a growing concern for millions. Tribal habitat to the global village, dingy dark hovels to electronic-fitted cottages— between them is the oligopoly ever in deep crisis. Only a seer’s wisdom can avert and diffuse the ticking bomb of population explosion thermonuclear and ecological doom.

LXXI

EMBER DAWN

Every dawn buried in a trench, every mind benumbed by the shock. The deathless spirit smiles in all-enveloping night, holds its head high in nihilism and despair. Never lets die the ember of hope even on the cross. Wear the martyr’s crown.

LXXII

EVERY MOTHER

Every mother prays for long life of her son, his well-being, his blossoming. Wants peace that her children sing peace carols and psalms, the anthems of creation. Affluent or indigent, stern or indulgent, every mother wants this; yes, every mother. She wants peace, for sure, peace; no war, not even a scuffle. Let mother show the way when mankind has strayed away.

LXXIII

THE PRECIPICE My brother stands before me ready to kill. To embrace the stab of hate and be killed or to dismount his proud head, in a fix I press the button. The chaos let loose, the bloodhounds set free upon the children of one mother who shared bread and broth in one kitchen, basked in the fire of same hearth, slept under the same roof and played hide-and-seek. How to retrace from the precipice, headlong fall. Mother is lacerated by each wound her children inflict upon one another. The irreparable loss is hers, the tragedy and suffering is hers. Never to her shall it be the same again. Spreading her cloth, she wails: Come home my children, come, there are forces who will not let us live, they have planted bombs all over my bosom. I can bear the shock of their explosion but not of another forty-seven. Please throw away this gun, spare your brethren, of the same womb. I pray for long life of all children, may peace on earth prevail.

LXXIV

BROWN BREAD To every toiling today and tomorrow I owe my little joy and sorrow. In my big and little plans my priority is common man in the eternal now of the earth, not in prenatal real or imagined birth. Immersed in work-a-day world, I have no regard for otherworldly things, neither the treasures of heaven nor the terrors of hell. Mine is a loving, fulfilling world where love and friendship clasp no shadows, where everyone strives for forging a brotherhood and a world sans weapons of mass destruction. Neither through divine intervention, nor promise of a kingdom of heaven, but by honest toil in service of fellowmen, mankind shall be saved from hunger and want.

LXXV

AWAKENED PEOPLE

When the people are awakened, no tyranny can put them down, bare-chested they confront the tanks and brave the mightiest tyranny. Undeterred they march on and on paving the way to liberation, overthrowing all oppression, terminating all human suffering. They sow the seed of life everlasting, foster the order of universal well-being, bind all human beings in fraternal bonds, a war free world on love’s foundations to raise. Chanting songs of happy cheer they send peace-balloons in the air, with warm hands and noble intent they free even the last man from fretting fear.

LXXVI

A TRUSTED MARINER Without change life's stagnation sits, wooden chair becomes the torture tool. Stone walls enclosures manacle life’s acres, no grass is green on hedges. The world’s toughest yacht race, this life, different crews but same are the boats racing against all prevailing currents. The only professional on the ship, by opposing pulls assailed in the tidal crossfire is caught. Learning from each bit of mistake one becomes a trusted mariner, the mentor of rebellious seas.

LXXVII

NUCLEAR FIRE

Civilizations rise and fall, tombs and catacombs, ideologies sabotaged, betrayed and bankrupted. There goes to debris the house of Soviets, towers and minarets, hoary and hallowed. The only light that stands out in pitch-dark is of nuclear fire, terrific in its overkill. No leader, no prophet, amidst the reigning chaos, yet we wait for the saviour to come with a secret remote close to his chest. In our dreary desert long for a whiff of fragrance, a song to cheer, a refreshing shower of grace.

LXXVIII

SUN-GAZER

Electrons on the run, mountains crumbling, oceans tumbling —a dance of dissolution. Dark clouds vanishing in depths of desolation, dreams dissolving in passivity’s night. Shadows close by enfolding eternities, I stand my ground gazing at the sun.

LXXIX

ANGUISHED CRY O Lord, save me from nuclear blast, blisters of radiation, yellow smoke of explosion. Tired of annexing territories and crowns, signing death warrants of near and dear ones, setting free the hounds of mad ambition, I have reached the end of the tether. I don’t want to die in the cannon fire, in the cacophony of bomb explosions, nor live in rat holes of nightmarish fears, the thought of day after make my heart sink. Save me from holocaust, from nuclear fallout, from ravages of radiation from thermonuclear blast. Lead me out of this horrid night; usher me into the dawn of freedom, the tides are rising full, draw me out of the whirls. Awake me into awareness of ongoing wholeness— the organic continuum of various orders of creation. Bless the earth with a new dawn, of freshening intelligence nurturing springs. Cleanse the dark ravines to revive beauty and harmony, the life-affirming vision.

LXXX

COLLECTIVE HOMICIDE Afloat on a sprawling sea, burning and churning, smoldering and smelting, the rugged earth. In multi-millennia navigating through sea routes and continents, conquering and killing the natives, colonizing, building empires. In the name of Allah the merciful, Christ the lord of love, Jehovah the stern justiciar of a mighty race, connecting black and marmara sea. I have survived time’s mutation, history’s upheavals, its vicissitudes, flowed in the dreams of multitudes like the sounding bells of dawn. A witness to Byzantine glory, Roman brilliance, Ottoman opulence, the hordes of marauders coming from barbarian habitations. Always bubbling with mighty turbulence, unfurling the ensigns of victory on the minarets and prickly domes, every time raising, new cathedrals of renown. Torched in the next moment into rubble, melted concrete and Iron, from the towering eminence mocking at the Creator.

LXXXI

Still hoping for a new dispensation, shall that come and be lasting, how much more destruction no one knows! No end to popes and priests, dupes of an ingenious goddess whose tentacles surround the earth mushrooming altars of sects and creeds. Truth lost in the parochial darkness of faith, worshiping unknowable abstractions, oblivious of the pressing concerns of fellowmen, go about raising altars to goddess of fear and hate. Hypnotizing its soul-killing hold sending many a people to the theatre of war drugged by one or the other abstraction. Religion, race, tribe, nation, language, caste, kinship, region— the sub-national identities raked up by the ingenuity of a conditioned brain. Sunk in the mire of unreason, worshiping the id-generated gods, luring people into their bloodstained altars for collective homicide. Obdurate in its intransigence, repetitive in its pattern of occurrence, learning nothing from the inherited wrongs or the fatal sins of forefathers. Forcing and coaxing to sacrifice the finest flower of youth to safeguard the glory of a stone, or avenge an imagined wrong.

LXXXII

Puffed by artificial pride, of narrow sectarian slogans, they go on a killing spree claiming foreign territories. Raise armies to extend their dominion, to get back a piece of land annexed by the precursors of the present regime, any excuse sufficient to support a fight. Waxing full the national frenzy before unleashing a crusade, a war to the finish, be it Vietnam, Iraq, Gulf or Afghanistan. Everyone dies a martyr in the name of saving his religion or nation. No concern for the earth-mother whose children are we all. When shall this consciousness dawn, O Lord, when?

LXXXIII

THE POET When man walks erect, casts no shadow, he is hallowed. Colonialism gone, statist communism gone, but tyrannies appear in new avatars. Revolution abides, though broken and shattered; man’s resolve outlasts dissolution. When everyone sleeps, the poet is forging words. To rouse, to bring forth a race of warriors. A new man, a new order, a new language. Invites everyone to join the congregation, of love and brotherhood.

LXXXIV

SADIST MAESTRO How long will you treat man as a beast, O priest? Hasn’t man made gigantic cathedrals and pyramids, star-set space-stations and satellites to navigate the cosmic seas? Unravel the mysterious skein, divine conception and design, trinity and God’s plan, man’s redemption and restoration! The paradise he fell from, its luster, its brilliance, his divinity, his grandeur, the envy of gods. When shall the kingdom return, how long a wait, how long, O priest? Stop drugging man with soul-killing poison, no more dopes, no more delusions. Let him be a free man with no altar for worship, his head bloody but unbowed before any tyrant god: The creator, perpetuator of this iniquitous world, a chimera born of man’s frenzied brain, the sadist maestro of the zero-sum game. Let man work out his own salvation, freeing himself from all parochial darkness, dismantling Berlin walls and iron curtains, eliminating all weapons of mass destruction. Only love, compassion and service will bring his release.

LXXXV

MAN

Unfed, unclothed, unhoused, uncared, he moves unseen, unwanted, unloved. The real man, to him belongs the earth; his home, the whole universe. Prior prior prior prior

to to to to

Popes, prior to Churches, crucifix-tasting-man, kings and emperors, conquerors, battle-worn.

On his bones has risen sky-kissing towers of civilization every pyramid of ambition, every dome of revelation. Unseen, he is always there, unsettling every plan, occupying the centre-stage with floodlights on.

LXXXVI

THE SAME ESSENCE Everywhere the same sky, same patch of land, same sun to bask in, same moon to dally with. Same in America, same in Europe, same in Asia, same in Far East, same in Africa, same in Japan, the same water encircling the earth. Go anywhere, eastward or westward, you will meet the same people: same affections, same passions, same festivities, same feasts. Skin-colour may vary, the blood in veins is the same, same alternation of moon cycles, same lunar rhythm in every being. Same upswing of high tide, fall and swell of waves, passion to kiss the moon magic crop in full bloom. Same nostalgia to go a-fishing in the night sky, same wonder catch once in a blue moon. Splashing of moonbeams, dulcet lilt of wafting breeze, heart-throb of primal harmony from spheres set in cosmic scale. Behind man’s moods and seasons, high and dry, cloudy and clear, sweet and bitter, of every flavour, same pattern, same rhythm occurring unawares.

LXXXVII

THE ORDAINED MISSION (i) Walls break, peoples hug, Germanies unite, there is light. Amidst gongs and bells, new world is born. A new Europe rolls down the escalator of time. (ii) Ringing with cries of freedom, prestroika unfurls in the sky, glasnost breaks the union. A new confederation takes off to join the older choir, new priests are anointed. (iii) Bishops sit in circle, kiss crosses one by one, blood and flesh a real feast. No heretic nailed, no prince crucified, no one killed in fake encounters. State is on the alert to let no assassin go scot free.

LXXXVIII

(iv) With no regret or remorse I walk out of the prison after a twenty-seven-year spell. I am my future held in chains yet a beacon to my men, the Mandela to my generations. I fix my gaze on my son dispatched to the guillotine, I burn red with rage struggling to break open the cage. No sacrifice is too dear to break asunder human chains, that my fellowmen be free from the accursed slavery.

LXXXIX

BONE –WEAPONS

The anger of a whole generation frozen in my bruised bones, slogan-weary, action I want. With my bones I forge weapons to continue the fight for the wretched of the earth. Despite a choking in my throat, not content till I wipe every stain from the face of the earth. I wake up in a new dawn, join the historic march to overthrow tyrants and empires. Hail freedom’s birth; herald for everyone, O ye, bard for the crestfallen.

XC

ROLL IT GREEN

Beyond the barbed wire is the luscious green; who dares jump over the wall shall get an electric shock. Gone the barbed wire, torn the iron curtain, dismantled the concrete wall, all meet in a warm embrace. The children of one earth, sharing a common hearth, flowing from the same source, set on a historic course. The grassy green around, bustling with merry sound, is the heritage of all; indivisible. The wall that stands in-between shall not be. We will roll it green this summer. The earth is one, the universe one, the eco-system one, all life one.

XCI

COSMIC RED No walls separate us, no chasm yawns, nothing stands in-between the mother and her sons. Red is the colour of every son’s blood, of the killer and the killed, the mother weeps for both. When “isms” contend and explode, the blood that flows is cosmic red, the same at birth and death. Same the ale and bread, same the flavour, same the stench, even remains the same.

XCII

BEYOND RECOGNITION

How cloying the deeds sung by bards, the blood-curdling exploits of heroes slain in war. How empty it sounds, “a hundred died in one round.” Headless, in heaps they lie battered beyond recognition. What for? To satisfy the whim of a war-lord, to annex a mound where not a blade of grass grows. Not to vanquish the evil that lurks in human breast, not to slay the monster that tears asunder our calm! Why add to senseless strife? Why swell the ranks of Satan’s tribe? Why not raise our arms to the One who shall order our redemption?

XCIII

LIFE-SWALLOWS

O Lord of the sea, give me your fury, your roaring clarion, that the tyrants quake. Blow into my soul the breath of your vision that I embrace multitudes in my vast outspread. Burn away, dear, every doubt, every fear; that I be scourge to every predator every power-drunk war-monger. Bury beneath the timeless sand your every grievous wound, to let grow a million springs abloom that life-swallows chirp and sing.

XCIV

A MISSION TO REDEEM Why put restriction on import of immortal love songs? Why restrain fancy’s flight, why screen away the light? Why not let winds freely pass before your door, wherefore your windows close? Let the sun come in. Your whole future is at stake, let new thoughts come straddling along plotting a putsch at every iron wall let the ensign of freedom unfurl. Why be afraid of a whirlwind agonizing trials and tribulations? Nothing can shake your roots embedded in deep solid earth. Your goal, well-being of all, Not merely of one people, your glasnost and prestroika embrace the whole world. Freedom for every man, the earth as one family, your vision at the civilization’s dawn. The oldest sage was your father. The world calls you again to come out of your narrow shell and speak of abiding concerns for the entire human race.

XCV

You are the most enlightened seer, philosophy you have lived and died for— the truth common to all religions, above the din of dissension. You have nurtured the dream of a unified cosmic consciousness irrespective of race or nation: peace to all men, peace to all habitations. You have flown kites in the open sky, moved in unwalled space, envisioned an order-will cutting across frontiers. Unappeased your appetite for all good things, every peacock your prosperity sings, you are friend to every man fired with a mission to redeem.

XCVI

SON OF GANGA

Born in penury, in adversity rocked, in seismic upheavals flown on the raft of flesh and bone. Go over the seven seas forging bonds of love, with poets from many lands in earth-consciousness bound. Musing on the river Cam, cruising on the Rhine, flowing verses to Yangtze, son of Ganga goes to meet his brothers. From Paris to Rome, Beijing to Taipei, Bangkok to Tripoli, Kansas to Cambridge. Create confraternity of poets, the legislators of mankind to usher in the citizenship of the earth.

XCVII

CONFLUENCE

I bequeath to you, my child, the pride of being born in this hoary land of man’s first spring. Here sages sang the first hymns to light, and the Ganga of civilization came down from heaven itself. Here thronged from many lands streams and rivers to a confluence of cultures and beliefs greening the earth with universal love. Pillaged by marauders, laid waste by bandits, from the ashen gloom you arise, unvanquished. Beneath the silt of time flows the Ganga sublime with psalms and hymns of a hoary civilization. The enduring remains of her sacrificing sons, the inheritors of halcyon past. keep her soil forever green.

XCVIII

THE GLOBAL VILLAGE? Internet has come, the world has shrunk, are we in the global village? No more the neighbourhood, no more the sharing brotherhood, no more the bond of affection and duty. Gone the carefree community life, of sitting round the fire in wintry nights. No more spinning of fortune’s change, no telling beads of stars.

XCIX

FULFILLMENT

How fulfilling longing for more love, dreaming of new dawns, hoping for new shoots. Relax the choking grip on throat to release the captive voice, let no scorpion fear gnaw your soul; happiness is consummation of the whole, Not of a part, of body, or of mind, not of one people, but the whole mankind, not of one region, but the entire earth; for in common filaments is bound all life.

C

EARTH-CITIZEN

Nationalism broken, ethnicity triumphant, terror on the leash! Whereto are we heading, backward or forward, one world or tribal herd? The earth-citizen! When shall he come to be baptized?

CI

EARTH-CITIZENRY

A field it was of waving hands, of rhythmic steps, of a slow-moving dance. Yellow and red, black and brown, white and bright, every colour and shade. The whole choir sang, in bliss of harmony, serenading to the earth-citizenry.

CII

I SALUTE THEM ALL Mines all over the earth, no safety cover over my roof, sky’s blanket wears many holes. Tortoise – like I withdraw into my bunker shell, anxiously wait for it to get clear. Suddenly the bottom of the ocean is ripped open shooting up tempestuous whirls. Lightning thunder breaks ribs of mountains, hurricanoes wreak havoc. God of doom is seen closing in the noose around the gasping earth. Horror-struck I watch the doomsday dance in the tunnel of gloom. Some monster – blizzard bashes the earth-mother Devki-like plucking her hair. Mother’s chest is flung open by deluge of mineralled flares, by thunder-wielding cyclones. In one hoary aeon a boar had release her from the clutches of a mighty demon, had pulled her out from bottomless deep.

CIII

Where are mighty heroes like Bhagiratha, the bringer of holy waters from the inaccessible glens of heaven. Now no Agastya, the ocean-drinking sage, no Dadhichi, the bones-weapons-forging seer, no nachiketa, the knower of death’s mystery. I salute them all, the heroes cast in martyrs mould, glorious their scroll of deeds.

CIV

CAN A POET DIE AT ALL?

Who is there philosophizing atop the hoary hill: The earth is dying, the sun is dying. Aren’t these sheer lies? Can a poet die at all? Isn’t he the same before and after the fall? Why beat the self-same drum, worn out by diurnal dum dum, no more can it bear the strain, constant tapping shall affect the brain. The capsule that I bury this day, the truthful record of an ill-fated play, the climax and denouement of epic dimension caused by a fatal flaw in psyche of man. At the same spot I shall bury the living and dying profile of the sun, the blue-print of a new civilization yet to arise on ruins of the existing one.

CV

© GANDHI EARTH VISION FOUNDATION First Published 2004 Price : Rs. 150/- ($30) ISBN NO. : 81-88871-02-8

Written by

Madan G. Gandhi

Published by:

Gandhi Earth Vision Foundation H-23/16 DLF Phase-I Gurgaon-122002. Haryana (India) Phone: 0124-5054392 e-Mail :

[email protected]

Printed & Typeset by BMC Datasoft (P.) Ltd., New Delhi e-mail: [email protected]