The Mahatma And I

There was a time when my ‘creative pursuits’ included scribbling little Haikus at the kitchen table because watched pots never boil and writing fond memoirs of an uncomplicated childhood while staying up late with my children on school project nights.

As a homemaker, my attempts to write with method and purpose were often blown aside in the frenzied rush of weekdays and buried deep under weekend piles of laundry. And so, prey to procrastination, they remained, isolated nuggets of creativity, sadly scattered over pages of diaries, unknown, unread, anonymous.

To start a blog was part of my New Year resolution. But for some strange reason, New Year resolutions overwhelm people like me into a state of jinxed inaction.

When I was a child my father once narrated the story of how he quit smoking. A young smoker, he stumbled miserably through failed New Year resolutions until that second of October fifty years ago, when he broke his enslaving addiction for good. I draw inspiration from his magnificent victory to break my sin of procrastination.

This blog is my little virtual space where my voice is heard for who I am for

‘I am the mother and the daughter,

Companion, sibling and spouse,

Everywoman in intuition,

Indian, in my instinct.’

A poetic tribute to the father of the nation

We live in times when the ‘Gandhian path’ has lost its direction from being a way of life to a political compulsion to acquire the Mahatma’s meagre belongings at international auctions.

I wonder if our very own saint of simplicity would have foreseen the day when his spectacles and a drop of his blood would be valued in millions rather than his deep vision and the spirit of sacrifice his simple life symbolised.

The Mahatma and I

One night as I tossed in bed,

Caught in the tempests of fitful sleep

I saw an old man troubled,

His chest bore wounds so deep.

He held in his hands a cloth,

So faded and stained as old

With such love and tender care,

As a father his child would hold

Curious for a closer glance

Of that form so familiar and bent,

I walked some unsure steps

To unravel what this strange scene meant.

Bapu! I gasped shaken

Deep in delirious confusion

He looked up at me for a moment

My frail, tear stained apparition.

He bade me to sit by his side

And stroked my little head awhile

And picked up with trembling hands

The tricolour, with a sad smile.

Many long years ago,

When the bullets rent my chest

Clothed in these colours I bid

Adieu to claim my rest.

But they tore open my scars

Into bleeding wounds once more

When they robbed my flag of the virtues

Dyed into the colours it bore.

Saffron so rare and precious

Holy hue of sacrifice and courage

But heed not my beloved nation

To the jaundiced beckoning of the savage

White is for ‘satya’, so pure

In thought and speech to be harboured

White fire that purged my soul

While with experiments in truth I laboured

The swaying fields of green

The smile on a farmers face

The freshness of life and faith

Green is for growth and gain

But where hunger consumes the tiller

Where he ploughs not but digs his grave

And the earth cracks deep heartbroken

None can this motherland save.

The wheels of the eight fold path

Lie trapped in the mire of corruption

The chakra of progress ceaseless

Spins in vain, in the ditch of no salvation.

The white man’s chains long broken

I still weep over India’s plight,

Abused in the hands of her sons,

While in blinded greed they fight.

And he sighed and wiped a tear

And took my little hands in his,

Looking deep into my eyes

While whispering this

This is the land that bears

The blood of a million selfless sons

Of lifetimes spent in toil

For a swaraj without guns.

I draw solace from the pride that beams

From a heart that adores his land

As he greets the fluttering flag

With a true, saluting, hand.

So saying he faded away

Into an unreal cloud of mist

But it cleared my mind of its fog

This once in a lifetime tryst

 Two golden threads to treasure

Of truth and tolerance divine

He wove into the fabric

Of freedom, yours and mine

Riches limitless to share

With one another in eternal kindness

To usher the whole of mankind

Into that sublime sea of deliverance.

Asha Mathew