How Can I Forget? Poem by Shankaran Kutty

How can I forget my first day in school
Even if forty summers have past
The long bus ride on a monsoon day cool
And the playgrounds so large and vast

How can I forget that bright day in spring
Over thirty seven years ago
For that day into my life did bring
My best friend in life, my bro

How can I forget the first smell of rain
That drenches the earth each June
As it joyously ends the hot summer’s reign
And fills up each dried up lagoon

How can I forget that day in fourth
When the principal called me to give
A geometry box, a gift, that is worth
All the pride, that I still relive

How can I forget the joys of Onam
Songs, flowers and sadya thereafter
Sprightly it comes in the month of Chingam
To fill our lives with fun and laughter

How can I forget the sad demise
My grandma, the treasure of my life
No lady have I known more regal or wise
Her death left me in unabated strife

How can I forget my first day at work
A software engineer, who me?
And TCS name was an added perk
My destiny, perhaps, it was to be

How can I forget that August day
When I took my wedding vow
Through flowers and thorns we have found our way
Eighteen years of pure love

How can I forget when my two little darlings
Were brought into this earth to treasure
Amongst life’s most happiest things
None has given more pleasure

How can I forget my parents dear
Who have always been there by my side
They have wiped my occasional tear
On my success, swelled with pride

How can I forget my family ever
My wife and the two jewels in my eyes
Their love and affection supports me forever
The inspiration for my life’s all highs

How can I forget life’s little fears
Those, which has kept me on my toes
They who stopped by just to say cheers
And all my friends and foes.

How can I forget the best of them all
My friends, who have always been my side
With me on my heights, with me on my fall
On whom my secrets I confide

How can I forget them much closer to heart
My friends, yet brothers and sisters they are
They whom no one can tear apart
Much thicker than blood we are

As the journey called life does meander
Through the labyrinth of daily chores
We often forget what we should remember
When daily tensions does soar

More painful to the heart is when
Events we ought to forget
Nurture still in our hearts and then
Lingering pain is all that’s left

So live life to its fullest
Believe in the power of now
Today is always the best
And submit to the One above