Gurus Of All Seasons Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

Come, trust me to give every odd answer,
Have faith in my wisdom to deliver,
Come, have belief in thine own latent power,
O waiting to be unleashed; they aver.

If wading art thou unto floods of woes,
Confidence conspiring to disappear,
Strife nor thine stress any gravity knows,
Come if thine earnings run in a slow gear.

A guru handy is with whatso help:
Birds of brave feathers like Dale Carnegie—
Winning disciples, seeking power and pelf,
Be it Napoleon Hill's ‘Think and rich be'.

And happy-to-help industry is rife—
Bookshelves are crowded like yet-to-reap crops,
There are retreats galore, sundry workshops,
An ocean pulsates as if with odd life.

How taxing tough and testing this time is?
Emperors when ventured the world to tame,
No more a stressful age it was than this,
Same are human heads and hearts, same the aim.

When Arjun and brothers suffered exile,
Or when Sita fell into Ravan's hands,
To rescue her when Ram reached Lankan isle,
Even when Noah abandoned flooded lands.

The cares and concerns of life scarce much change,
Sons still believe: their fathers had it good,
Only broadened hast aspiration's range,
Perchance grumpy has grown man's attitude.

A starry role of a Greek tragedy
Man oft readily takes, soaps fresh in mind,
Refusing all the while to remedy,
Nor take command of the life with pain lined.

And wants and wishes have grown ever since
Adam and Eve did their innocence lose,
To douse his growing desires gone obtuse,
Man blest is with many a modern means.

But then, pray, what ails this much-hassled man?
May be, man's tuned more to the outside world,
And his inner voice now much less is heard,
On dunghills as if seeks her joys a hen!

Man looks like a seafarer in a storm,
With shortcuts and set-solutions galore,
Happy-to-help crippling all the more,
All he does: dream of shore to keep heart warm.

But man has to figure his own way out,
Happy to help can't his miseries end,
At worse, it may leave him with same old doubt,
Tied hands they teach him to swim end to end!

The best of cooking done is at slow fire,
Instant noodles please but for an instant,
If your belly burps with enough desire,
Let all gurus wait with gyan so pregnant.

Leave all the guru-gyan buried in texts,
Jump in to know what's right in right contexts,
It's no use watering flowers and fruits,
The plant need be nourished nigh at the roots.
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For every little problem in the world today there is a happy-to-help book, or a guru retailing a what-to-do gyana (knowledge) .
They regurgitate the ancient wisdom presented in a smart, ready to accept way. But, most often, they deal with the symptoms rather than the root cause. There is no short cut in life. The basic problems are not so different than they were in the past, but the complexity to search the root problems has greatly increased. There is no one size that can fit everyone. The true self-help must start at home, or else it will not work.
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Satire | 03.07.10 |