The old Man & family planning

Oh God!

Thy sea is so vast and deep

And the old man’s boat so porous,

Grown perilously pervious

His rudder is completely worn-out.

The tide is unkind

And unfavourable.

The sun has set and

Darkness has prevailed.

His destination is

Still so far away

Far beyond the horizon.

His eye sight is already weak

And his muscles has gone

Sluggish and exhausted

He’s been sailing too long

Since the dawn, all along.

The peace of his mind

Is drying up,

And his patience

Giving way,

A storm is feared.

He feels

Depressed and defeated.

He is afraid,

His heart may sink

Before his boat capsizes.

There in his boat are left,

Young children, their ailing mother,

His eldest daughter and a jobless son.

His eldest daughter

Married earlier

Looks morose and

Feels marooned.

The cheer and pleasures

Of the whole family

Has gone to the winds.

This has told much

Upon the mental health

Of his better-half.

For the last few years

She has been ill of rheumatoid arthritis

And rheumatic carditis.

She has become listless,

Indifferent to things,

And looks unmoved.

This heckles him too much

For no fault of the poor old man.

He heaves a deep sigh

And wants to speak something

As his lips tremble,

But his tongue does not permit.

His eyes

Fail to control

The tears

Welling-up in both his eyes

The poor old man feels himself

So unlucky that

He has no place to weep.

The old man compares

Blessed are those

Who have a place

Where they can talk openly

More blessed are those

Who have a place

Where they can laugh freely

The most blessed are those

Who have a place

Where they can weep bitterly.

Blessed are those

Who have an earning son

More blessed are those

Who have an obedient son

The most blessed are those

Who have no son but daughters.

Blessed are those

Who have a beautiful wife

More blessed are those

Who have an earning wife

The most blessed are those

Who have a dedicated wife.

Blessed are those

Who have a beautiful lady as wife

More blessed are those

Who has a beautiful  lady as a friend

Or  a cordial boss

The most blessed are those

Who have even a simple lady

As their true well-wisher.

Blessed are those

Who are busy without business

More blessed are those

Who are busy under compulsion

The most blessed are those

Who are busy in their choicest jobs.

The old man finds himself no-where.

He turns his face

And looks behind

To the sea

And gets lost.

The old man remembers

The blooming days

Of his wife

After marriage.

He fails to believe that

She is,

That very young lady

Smiling and dancing

Chirping and twittering

Flapping and fluttering

Around him

In his courtyard

Like a Khanjan bird

A seasonal, Siberian bird

Which comes only once

For a short while

In the coldest days of winter

And deserts the place

With the change in temperature

Here now,

It is too hot

Even dark local crows

Find it hard

To put up with this temperature

The children are quite ignorant

Of the imminent dangers.

They are enjoying the tide

Which takes his boat very- high

And takes it down very- low

They are thrown in a world of gaiety,

At times,

They burst into laughter

And look towards him,

The old man has nothing

But to join them

With a sardonic smile.

The children have

Tremendous confidence in him

And hence,

When he is there on the rudder

They go dauntless  and carefree.

The children never realise

He has grown old & weak.

The old man is completely helpless.

He does not want them

To disappoint or disturb

Nor to disclose and divulge

His apprehensions

Or any such feelings

To any one of them,

In any way,

Now any more.

When dejection prevails

He feels the absence

Of his two sons

Who are

Grown­-up, robust,

And veteran-sailors,

Have already sailed-on

Separately,

With their new boats,

In different directions,

Leaving behind

The frail and the feeble,

The haggard and the haggish

To their own fate.

Even then,

He is apprehensive,

And prays for their safe arrival,

For he knows

That their wives

Who acts like compasses

For their new boats

Are beautiful, fashionable,

Up-to-date in manners, and

Up-to-the-mark in behaviours,

No doubt,

But seldom give

Correct direction.

The old man is okay

If his sons are okay.

His heart melts through his eyes

And his tongue goes unfounded

When memory unfolds

The pages

Of the childhood

Of his two daughters

Married happily with their husbands

At a very far distance.

They have vacated his house,

Have yet to vacate his heart.

Time is a unique factor.

It has transformed

His sweet home

Into a lifeless house

And his sweet memories into tragic ones.

One of his sons is

Heartless and jobless

Adds nothing but weight

To the old man’s boat

And prays for his early but safe departure.

The son’s eye are

On his hard earned gratuity

And a job

On compassionate ground.

The old man fears

And comes to realise

In the last

Had he adopted family-planning

In his adulthood

He would have been

A far happier person.

He takes a vow,

Catching both his ears

That in his next birth

He will never marry

If compelled to do so

He will go for family-planning

Not after two or three

But certainly after one

Which the old man prays for

A female child & thinks

As need based

And a vital issue

Not out of jokes

And requires

Attention and appreciation

Of junior generation and officials concerned

The old man regrets

To think of His vast creation

Which in the old man’s opinion

Is totally needless and purposeless

And he feels His creation

As the single blunder

Committed by Him

The old man expresses his own feelings

And he wants Him

Only to stop this

Vicious–cycle of birth

And explosion of population

In no time

Without fail

As it is much more

Than too much.

The old man finds

Little difference

Between dowry deaths

And death before retirement.

Money is everything

For his son like many others

Who are potential criminals

In the guise of gentlemen.

The old man becomes restless

To know

There is no effective act

Like dowry act and

No effective cell

Like Harijan cell

For dejected, dismayed

And disabled pensioners.

The pensioners are known

As senior citizens

But only in name

They are treated something worse

Than B-grade citizens

In his own government

While in chair

He used to think that

He was the government

In his own office

Where he had his monopoly

In his home

Where he was the monarch,

Among his hangers-on

He was much sought after

And for whom

He did commit every mischief

But today in their eyes

He is good for nothing

He has been degraded to zero

As if his name were

Thrust into the list

Of persons awaiting death

But the old pensioners

Are helpless.

They have nothing left

Except appreciating

And praising their sons

And daughters-in-law.

The old man expects

From none but the government

To look and see

Its legal liabilities

But the old man regrets to see the chaos

Prevailing in the government.

Heads are headless

Bases are baseless

Brains are chairless

Money matters

And still reservation prevails

His people are leaving him

One by one

There is none

To help and appreciate

His feeling and tone

He is alone.

The line “aekla chalo”

Which commands

“Don’t bother and never look behind

Be bold, and keep on going

Go ahead and go alone”

Comes to his mind

He is impetuous and impious

Impish and imperious

Indecent and indecorous

Hence he feels at soul

He really does not deserve

Divine help

Nevertheless,

At the fag end of his voyage

He surrenders himself completely

Before God

With both his hands-up

Praying,

God alone can bless him

With a new

Vision and virtue

Vigour and vitality

Needed to sail across

But he wants to be helped

Only when a storm comes,

Till then

He wants Him

To let him sail on

Until his voyage

Ends.