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.
...

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

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

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

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?
...

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
...

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.
...

I dream of designing a mindscape,
painting it with the colours
of love, affection, fraternity.
The brush glides over their contours,
...

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

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,
...

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.
...

Let us face it squarely: what exactly
is the job of a poet?
Perhaps this much is conceded: to relay life.
...

Outside, the night thickens
its wall of silence,
dissolving all echoes of sound.
...

Peaks, and still higher peaks
towering into the immense blue
beckon us as ever
from the height of their majestic splendour.
...