Tempest of time (poems)

Tempest of time (poems)

-Kondapalli Niharini

Translated by Elanaaga

32. Gandhi ji, We Would be Like This Only!

Bapu!
You are holding a staff in hand,
standing silently in intersections
where times and hearts are destroyed.
Who wants to know if you fought
against racial discrimination
or for the forlorn people of their own land?
It was the need of the hour then.
You asked us to live like brothers,
but this is a quilt of many patches!
Fraternal bonds are full of cruelty
brewing hypocrisy in hearts.
You said we should ever emit lustre,
but people are becoming ashes
in the heaps of distrust.
You asked us to not drink alcohol;
when you were questioned about the same,
this world is saying it’s his need!
You preached to us toeat moderately,
told to read Gita and asked us to realize
equality is more important than religion.
Yet how could you pretend
throughout your life as a virtuous man?
You made salt satyagrahaat a distant place;
it reached here fast, united all the Indians,
and made them fight tooth and nail! How?
All is a ‘bitter confusion’ for us!!
Bapu, we are all enjoying freedom now;
who is bothered about
the then British rulers’ disparaging views?
The English language kept on mingling with us;
it is now giving us new pleasure.
We are sleeping in the trap of iron knives
How long will we live? We know not.
Corona may swallow us any day!
You always thought about India,
and wanted it to be a nation of Truth.
We on the contrary are visualizing it
as a hanging burning portrait,
but cannot wear a short vest as you did.
Cannot stand by the wails
of the hungry citizens either.

Bapu, we will be like this only.

(Satyam News, KaviPrapancham, 2nd October 2020)

*****

(To be continued-)