Ajit Das

When the sky is azure blue,
the horizon draws a line
between heaven and earth.
...

The dark thins out, the landscape
stirs slowly with hints of life;
the day begins for the old man living
in the house across the road.
...

When they were butchering innocent children
for revenge or using them as human shield,
enacting the most gruesome act of inhumanity,
another scene of a child giving life and light:
...

When I am alone with myself,
your face still surfaces
from the heaps of old memories.
...

Eklavya, the forest dweller Nishada, motivated
by his intense desire to excel in the art of archery,
approached Dronacharya, the royal Astra-Guru,
imploring to accept him as one of his disciples.
...

Thick December fog wrapping around,
she had left the office after night shift.
Suddenly she found her bank card missing
and no money to hire a taxi or board a bus.
...

World Heart Day! What’s it all about?
I know of human heart, animal heart,
but never heard world having a heart.
They say it is human heart, merging
...

‘You said it' - this discomforting reminder
to big egos, stripping away their masks,
bringing out the buffoon from leaders,
outwardly hallowed, inwardly doublespeak,
...

Mother India! We are all your children,
adoring you, chanting ‘victory to thee'.
But, as in a family, we grow unequally:
many privileged, many more neglected.
...

Bent on a pair of crutches
he makes his tentative move.

Stretching the left crutch
...

A bony figure in tattered dress,
hair dry, unkempt, face unshaven,
but his eyes in the sockets burning –
is it the fire of hunger or rage?
...

Brute of a word! Why do you never
get off the back of my mind?

All day long I am tied to you.
...

If you're a lesser mortal, have you ever tried
to get through a bureaucrat
who somehow supposes taking calls,
picking up the phone himself, dwarfs his official status?
...

We may not have fear from friends and foes,
nor be afraid of the past, the present and the future,
nor harbour fear during the day and the night.
So says the wise man in the pages of the scriptures.
...

Subverting the system yielding no escape route
and law, finally, taking its own course,
the VIP feigns chest pain, moves in an ambulance
from hospital to hospital for urgent medical aid,
...

The snow-white body, red beacon, siren
fitted on the top,
the ambulance waits at the hospital's gate
for emergency calls.
...

Still reminiscent of red and blue beacons,
you behave sometimes like a spoilsport,
dragging others into the hay day of your past,
when you were something to gloat about.
...

I’m not sure I know much about you.
But they say you exist;
that’s why the earth moves, life breathes.
...

I'm a poor mortal dwelling in a city ghetto,
working hard for a living all day long.
What I earn suffices only for daily needs.
Induced by a fellow dweller next door,
...

No moon sailing through patches of clouds,
nor any flower bed flashing riot of colours,
or even a face blushing with hazel eyed glance;
...