In search of lost soul
Tayenjam Bijoykumar Singh *
I once was the proud owner of a petite Soul,
the owner of a fragile Heart.
I could feel love, pain and compassion.
Once, I saw a woman,
a helpless woman with a child in her lap,
tears rolling down her shrunken cheeks,
watching people dismantling her roadside tea stall,
encroached upon government land.
Hammers bludgeoned pulling the stall apart.
I, helpless like her, stood watching dumbfounded.
Each blow of the hammers reverberated in my heart.
Unknown to her, a feeling of compassion engulfed me.
On the plot across the road stood a majestic building,
also built on government land.
The owner, a henchman of a minister,
was standing at the gate with a pleasant smile on his lips.
Again, I saw two boys, in tatters, not more than nine,
carrying rug sacks slung over their shoulders.
They were rummaging in garbage heaps
for bits of plastic and metallic objects.
Rag pickers, they surely must have been,
looking for anything worth selling to scrap dealers.
Their innocent faces caused a tumult in my heart
and I wrote a story of the two boys, a fiction.
With it I embarked on my journey as a writer.
The sight of women selling vegetables at the roadsides
braving chill wind, scorching sun and thunder storm,
to eke out a living in this cruel world,
being chased away like dogs by government men,
saddened my heart and I shed silent tears for them.
I had thought if I could, if I could do anything for them
I would be happy, the happiest man in the world.
Fed with daily dose of news
of bullets painting scarlet flowers on human bodies,
of protectors turning predators
of ravaged women and children,
of false promises made by politicians,
I now have become immune to love, pain and compassion.
My Heart has turned into stone.
In this land
where olive greens sway at the roadsides
where trees once stood,
where wails have become melodious songs,
where dead bodies litter the paddy fields
where undulating waves of paddy plants
once played in the evening breeze,
where venality has become a way of life,
Soul has no place.
I have become a 'Mechanical Being'
unable to feel love, pain and compassion.
Every morning, I scan pages of newspapers
searching for my lost Soul,
to soften my Heart once more.
* Poem written by Tayenjam Bijoykumar Singh for Hueiyen Lanpao
This poem was webcasted on March 04 2015.
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