Anu Raj Rana- s173len05

I have attempted prompts 1,3 and 5

(1)Draupadi laments her fate

Being dragged by her hair

Into a room full of men

Well, that’s the last way

A woman would want

to break the glass ceiling.

You are told

“You are lost

in a bet!”

And you wonder…

That the world had to be

and had to be

stripped of its morality

and all of it

at solely your expense

…it’s a sad thought.

It is so that a husband

protects his wife

and I’ve got five

and yet…

if there was anything at all

in this to be gained by anyone

I say

None of these men have ever

had anything worth losing.

(2) Gandhi on 15^th August, 1947

As they call it Free-India,

I am here in Calcutta

trying to salvage what I can

and separate from it

what seems like a victory

but are mere remnants of a dream

turned into  a nightmare.

Prepared to fight the foreign enemy

we found ourselves unguarded

by the enemy inside,

 I wonder,

If there was such lack of love

And a crisis of identity

What was even worth fighting for?

History would chant that

I had struggled for India   

but it would not tell that

India, not as it’s today

But India as it was then.

Can’t say how many of them

who walked alongside me

have been pushed

to the other side.

(3) HOPE

In putting a string of words together

Which is barely a poem

There’s hope;

In trying to find an old diary

Which was flung into the junk

Somewhere hidden in the bookshelf

There’s hope;

In browsing for cheap tickets

To your dream holiday spot

Knowing you’re more than broke

There’s hope;

In voting for a change

Knowing it’s merely a shuffle

Of names

But still thinking it would somehow

Be for a better world

There’s hope;

In praying for some good

Knowing there’s no God

There’s hope;

See, that’s how I keep sane!

I take little doses of hope

After every meal each day,

For whatever it’s worth

It sure helps me

Sleep well.

(4) Finding oneself

Where do I find myself?

And the answer

Is a part of

scratching my nails;

pausing for a moment

to look into my image

in the mirror

as I brush my teeth;

the answer

is equally  a part of

what went inside

of my head in those hours

of delayed flights;

and equally a part of

how I enjoyed the rain

in my childhood days

and now how I’ve come

to hate it

only yesterday

for ruining

my expensive work shoes

as if on purpose?

And the answer is

A part of

The memories forgotten

And the ones retained;

And the answer is

I somehow feel

encrypted in a language

that I don’t understand;

and yet,  

there are times when I think

that the answer

would be somewhere

in a torn page

of my teenage journal

a biodegradable waste.

At times I like to change the question

As in, is there answer

Worth striving for

Or am I trying too hard

Trying to conjure a modern painting

From a child’s doodle art?

(5) Immigrants

The boundaries of nations

Might be all imagined,

But their role in reality

Defines worlds for many.

What and who

 Decides?

One step across the line

You’re illegal,

A step reverse

And you might be acceptable.

To speak of it

The line is quite invisible

And in this sense

The Wall is actually a good idea.

What and who

decides?

A stamp on your tiny book

You’re legal

Else you’re the scum of the earth.

Ever wondered if

When a block of ice

Suddenly collapses

Do the penguins in Antartica

Go around collecting stamps

Before they join the others

Of their own kind

In some other block?

(6) Student seeks questions

What’s labyrinth?

It’s a student’s life, Sir!

Are you lost?

Can’t answer until I give up, Sir!

Maybe you don’t have it in you,

To persist, to win, to fight the odds;

Ever thought about that?

Think? Your noisy bullshit

Doesn’t let me even the

Millionth part of think, Sir!

It seems to me, kid!

That hell is just another word

For ‘future’

Because you are the future;

That’s where you’re wrong ,Sir

I am ‘present’ Sir!

Much of the taxes of commons

Are spent in your books, food, room

Thinking you’d bring glory to the nation

And yet here you are

With a sense of self

Little as a lost sheep!

Calling me the sheep

Makes you the shepherd, Sir?

Look at that, kid!

When we pulled off

I was the one probing

And now you lead the talk,

Asking me questions!

I tell you, kid

This asking too much

Is a result of eating candy bars,

Having too much sex,

Wearing the wrong clothes,

Reading the wrong people,

And your brain is choked up

With the smoke puffs you

Don’t stop taking in!