Anhad ka Baaja

We draw borders And erect fences And say That is yours This is mine Don't cross Or else But borders are porous to Viruses (And ideas) And unless we realise that We all have to hang together We will

We take sides Erect barricades And settle down to see Who can outshout the other Changing your mind Is seen as Loss of face So there is no effort made To empathise with the other To see a different

Big Brother's Beard is Long and flowing Its hypnotic value Is forever growing Like that moving pipe The snake-charmer uses Our eyes keep following His beard's ruses And softly softly He murmurs

When Chithappa died I did not cry Grieve the dead, we must But enjoy the lives of the living, too What is gone is the body What is gone is the soul What remains are memories Pleasant (And

Sitting on Hippo Rock I see below me In the valley A chequerboard of greens That glistening green is Potti's paddy field Yet to be harvested Potti, the rough diamond With whom we had Our first fight

When we have children We want to Well Bring them up well We have to be aware, though, that They are Not clay to be moulded into pots Nor pots to be filled by us Think of Gardens to be tended