A Look At Life-40 Poem by Smrui Ranjan Mohanty

A LOOK AT LIFE-40
BY-SMRUTI RANJAN MOHANTY

The society
in which I am born,
the way I was groomed and socialised
to look at the world
made me what I am,
a machine which confirms
to the values
of the larger society.

All along I am taught and schooled
to look at the world,
behave, interact and interpret
in a way
defined by the society
to which I belong.

With hands and legs,
mind and conscience
strongly bound,
I am to live a life
far away from me.
Chained emotion, chained love
caged smile, caged feeling,
patterned behaviour, patterned interaction
I am supposed to live with,
love and endure.

When I first looked at the world
through my own eyes,
I felt it was not my eyes
through which
I was looking at
but through a pair of glasses,
thickly coloured
by the norms and values of society.
I never saw the world as it was
but the way I was made to look it at.

The values I inculcated stood in the way
and blurred my vision.
Since birth, I am in chains
chained in a golden chain,
the dos and don'ts
sacred and profane of the society
to which I belong.

copyright@smrutiranjan