THE MOTHER’S CALL

The horrifying emblem of war has,

Engraved upon itself, bloodshed and termination,

The soldier has to sacrifice every relation,

To attend the call of his mother nation.

To attend the call of motherland, a soldier,

Has to sacrifice every smallest bit of his bliss,

Through the rough path, he has to curb every gentle emotion,

From a father’s pat to a mother’s kiss.

From all the powers that I have,

I very easily can pull you back from the deadly cave,

Said a troubled mother to her beloved son, who,

She thinks is sitting at the doorsteps of his own grave.

Oh mother, it was on your insistence,

That i took the pledge to obey the nation’s call.

And now, when my turn is on,

I just can’t let the frontier fall.

All have, the first drop of their blood,

Originating from their mother’s veins.

But only few are fortunate enough,

To return the last drop, attending her pains.

It was dawn, he left for the battlefront,

Pretending as if war was much of a delight.

She stood there, and watched her son go towards the horizon,

And could see him, enlightened by the rising sun’s light.

Two days after, her son set on the journey,

Along the path, which had its end in the heaven,

For his mother, the oath he had taken,

Overshadowed, to his mother, the assurance he had given.

As the title aptly suggests, this is a story of a son who is in a dilemma, as to which call should he pay heed to - The Call of the Mother who wants him to stay away from death, or The Call of the Mother who needs him to fight for her safety. The boy, finally makes a decision to leave whatever he had, and channels himself towards his duty....The Duty of a Soldier, rather than The Duty of a Son....

JOHNNY JOHNNY! YES PAPA!

Johnny Johnny ! Yes Papa !

Sounds like a familiar rhyme,

Ever wondered what it felt like,

When by this you are addressed everytime.

 

The name I had, guess ably,

Didn’t exactly belong to me.

Johnny was my dad’s identity,

Who wanted me to be his carbon copy.

 

The respectful son in me, inducted,

Similarity, in almost every respect of my life.

Similar appearance, same profession,

But definitely not the same wife.

 

Y-E-S were the initials of my mentor,

Who taught me to be on my own feet.

Totally independent, though wasn’t I, as,

In the congress of my name, YES occupied an important seat.

 

The last word of my ‘phrasey’ name,

Was necessarily an identity of my clan.

Papasrothospoulous, as it was, I was able to exclude,

But, being heard with my name, its shorter version, I just couldn’t ban.

 

The most interesting aspect of my name,

Unexpectedly, is the presence of two exclamation marks,

As they rightly deciphered the expression of its listeners,

Followed by their lips splitting up, and forming semicircular arcs.

 

Throughout my life, my name burdened me,

In my sleep, and even when I went to pee.

But, recently, in heaven, it so happened,

An American nicked me, JJ Yippee!!!

The story of me writing on this topic goes like this.....There was a creative writing event in my hall. Now the person conducting this event, Uday Aghamarshan, gave this crazy clause, that there should be poem starting with the phrase "Johnny Johnny! Yes Papa!". His desire to read an absurd wirte-up must have been fulfilled by this one, by a fellow Manchester United fan, in which I recite the story of a person who has this entire phrase as his name.....

NATURE CALLING

 

To get rid of monotony in my life,

I spent my hours in the nature’s berth.

A precious gift which all have got,

But, rarely does one realize it’s worth.

 

On that grey rock, by the side of the stream,

I used to spend the early hours of the day.

As I wondered about its endless powers,

Which even crush rocks, to make its way.

 

Captivating the unending mystique glitter,

On the surface of the gushing stream in my eyes.

And listening to the stream’s familiar howl,

Whenever, above the rocks it had to rise.

 

In the shadow of that gigantic oak,

Over the soft, lush carpet of grass,

I slept at noon, as, for the blazing sun’s rays,

The kind giant made it difficult to pass.

 

As the sun approached the western horizon,

The orange sky was dotted with more than few tweets.

Flocking, uniformly to and fro, their wings,

Analogous to a soldier’s march on the drummer’s beats.

 

As the sun departed, darkness prevailed,

The vibrations faded, as the nature went to sleep.

The starlit sky seemed like a black wall,

With holes, through which light was trying to creep.

 

The silver lining of moonlight on the edge of distant hills,

Taught me the most valuable lesson of my life.

What separates the finite from the infinite,

                        Is a line as thin as the edge of a knife.

   

This is how a father narrates his childhood times, in the lap of nature to his beloved son. The last stanza needs a special reference, this was what I could conclude after narrating this poem to many of my friends. It refers to the silver lining, on the edge of mountains, in a moonlight night. Now, suppose we are sitting on the top of a hill. The distant mountain on the horizon is not visible due to darkness, and so is the sky above the mountain, which is black. In our view from the hilltop, what separates the two - the finite (mountain) and the infinite (sky), is just a thin line of moonlight.

FORLORN

Solitude, disgrace and misery,

Beat in my soul, with my heart.

In the journey of life, of my path,

Loneliness was an integral part.

 

Tears dried off my eyes,

There was no one to feel them.      

My soul was never at peace,

In my mind, there always was mayhem.

 

Moments of celebration, passed quickly,

Moments of frustration stayed for long.

My shadow was the only one that danced with me,

Decisions always seemed wrong.

 

Failures made me a pessimist,

Negativities in me were soaring.

Smile on my face was dying out,

Juices of sorrow, on my core, were pouring.

 

Hope still survives in my nucleus,

Optimism is still a part of my spirit.

A belief that the journey through the dark cave,

Is nearing its illuminated exit.

 

A day will come, when the rays of affection,

Will wipe off the loneliness in my soul.

When I’ll have a shoulder to cry,

And pats on my back, when I achieve my goal.

 

For twenty tears, I have been walking,

on the path, that life chose for me.

Henceforth,  I’ll choose my path,

And watch myself break free.