A Reeling For All Poem by M D Dinesh Nair

My students reel under the burden of new knowledge!
Whereas I stuff their minds with my old fables.
I read out a verse of Auden or Tagore
And begin to think of a great poet remembered.
But my students continue to reel under the Sun
Of new opportunities in the next phase of theirs.

My students of past are now in tens of thousands
Making dollars in the land of the kangaroos below the Indian Ocean
And beyond the Atlantics where the War mongers live in fear.
They reel under the clouds of new packages and amenities.
My voice is down, my energies are fading and
I reel under an agony `WHICH IS UNKNOWN TO THEM`.

My new students take an outh that 'they will not',
That 'they will not reel under the SUN of past'.
They whisper into my ears the glory
Of the emerging India - a new land of newer billionaires
And ask why they should make voyages now
As the new packages and amenities are great in the land of
Gandhi too - the land of three hundred million have-notes.

My new students whisper into my ears a new poem
I don`t know its script, nor do I know its rhyme and rythum.
I don`t know the poetry of the present.
But I know it for certain, you all bet
All are reeling under a thing or another
For there are always verses to spill over times.

First submitted: Saturday, March 08,2008