By Santosh Bakaya
He was not a stone-pelter
With his chubby cheeks and golden ringlets
Only a heart – melter!
Why was the five year old blinded
Just like that?
Against a wall in his house, stands his forlorn bat
His tiny dreams, and ambitions crushed
Just like that!
The house redolent with juvenile laughter
Has fallen silent
Just like that!
One more teenager has gone away, ah so far
Leaving behind a few books, and a broken guitar
Just like that!
The bright-eyed kids did not go gentle into the night
As the fire burning bright
In those limpid eyes
Was doused cruelly, ah so un-gently
Just like that!
‘And the blood of children ran through the streets
Without fuss, like children’s blood’
Just like that!
Who will wipe the mother’s tears?
And every parent’s apprehension fierce
That the light will not go out of their child’s eyes too
Colouring their world in a grey hue?
We were told, Milton lamented his imminent blindness
At age forty four.
Here, in this lost paradise
We have children of five and four
Being brutally blinded
Just like that!
The darkness is filled with silent screams
Following the crushing of juvenile dreams
A dubious peace is once again torn asunder
As yet another sight-less teen is buried six feet under!
Just like that!
Blessed are the sighted, for we have eyes
Yes, we can see, so why blindness feign?
Close our eyes to oppressed humanity’s pain?
With Pablo Neruda, let me exclaim,
‘Come, and see, the blood in the streets’.
Come, and see how a blind child’s mother’s heart beats.
Come and see her tears.
Come and see the lilacs sobbing
And the anemones crying
And the willows weeping.
Come and see the streets with bodies bullet –riddled
Nero fiddled then- he still fiddles!
Come, see how the sight-less hobble in the alleys of life
Groping their way, blindly through strife upon strife.
Come, let us rage on against the dying of this light.
The light that is meant to shine bright
From dreamy eyes
But is extinguished with impunity
With brazen brutality
Just like that!
Bio:
Sanely insane, a pathological procrastinator, a die – hard believer in Martin Luther King’s dream and John Lennon’s Imagine, dreaming of a day when there is ‘nothing to kill or die for’, and ‘all the people sharing all the world’, Santosh Bakaya has been critically acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi – Ballad of Bapu – and has also won the Reuel International Award [2014] for her long poem, Oh Hark! ,
In May 2016, she was conferred with the Universal Inspirational Poet award by Pentasi B Friendship Poetry Group and Ghana government.
Many of her poems have made it to the highly commendable category of Destiny Poets, a UK based poetry website, besides having figured in many international anthologies.
Her latest book, Where are the lilacs, a collection of peace poems, is also winning international laurels.
She stays in Jaipur with her husband and university going daughter.
