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You hoisted the flag
In Gandhi Ashram
Every year on this date
Until Year before last you
Went there on this date
With an old umbrella by your side
Like a tradition dying out
Of neglect and lack of renewal
The building of the Gandhi Ashram
Is in a state of decrepitude
Mysterious greedy eyes are lying in wait
To grab this precious land, the testament
To a past which was rich in values
You are now confined to a small room
Old age has overpowered you
Old friends have already raced ahead.
Where is the one who will take
The responsibility to save it
For the posterity?
Where are the people who took
Interest in the public good?
Personal progress in life
Is the supreme goal.
Who has time for
This time-tattered monument?
And to look after you too?
Platformed -speeches resounded in empty spaces,
Platitude and passions mingle
To build a shining India on the
Corner stone of corruption
By the bricks of casteism, nepotism,
Regionalism, and a grouping
Of my own people whose loyalty
I own for me is the highest ambition
And bigger than the nation
Who is called a mother, a
Helpless isolated ignored
Witness to all the melodrama
With black humour that is
Being staged in the every
State of the Republic marching past
Those innumerable freedom lovers
Whose sacrifices are not written in
Any books of history
But only in the leaves of those
Unseen pages which had a fall
Before their autumn rang the
Bell of their ripe harvest.
It seems by seeing the mockery
Of a democracy by the people, of the people
But not for the people
I remember the day which was green
And golden in my memory. |
