Time moves on like this moody river Gobbled up by the Ganga the courts of Moti and Hira Are memories of the past. From Khosbag Away the river recedes. Your burial vault Spared by iconoclastic time grimly reminds Your grisly end at the hands of your friend For a few pieces of silver or few draughts of drink Or for amorous embrace of dancing girls. The pillars of your kingdom, the farmers of your arms, Inspired by your inexperience, those professional men, Conspired to capture your tumbledown throne With helps from a horde of Bargis of a different clime Who had a plan of plunder and permanent settlement too. Waves of time have swept them also leaving this alluvial plains To be overrun again by adventurers of another hue.
The executioner’s axe, the daggers of hooded men Were for king-makers and aspirers to kingdoms But the serfs in their eternal serfdom Peacefully plodded with the placid flow of time Ploughing their fertile plots or plying their tiny boats Viewing this pageant with sleepy eyes Or hearing from a distance the rumbling guns of Plassey Caught up in the whirpools of this muddy time Now fight an internecine fight for whose kingdom?
