Human Efforts Poem by Deep Yadav

Don't teach me
What I should think and follow
I'm grown up, a man of 20
Seen people and their ways,
You only taught me a little truth of everything.
You said, believe in God
I believed but lost the ability to be self-reliant
I sang the holy hymns until voice hoarse
I lighted incense(more than others)
And while going through tough times
I relied on them wholly—
Thinking someone might come sailing from sky
And with his wand alter the pain I was going through.
Nothing happened It was me who suffered
It was human efforts which won.
I have seen people with plastered bones thanking God not Doctor
I have met with mens wasting their life in belief of afterlife
I have witnessed people believing in invisible powers neglecting ‘Human Efforts'

You only taught me a little about everything,
Let us not mince words and speak truth
Let's, continue present—the world we are in,
Through it go back to past; the world once sages dreamt —
Later the world it became,
They wrote scriptures to enlighten
To spread wisdom and words of peace
To let humans live in mutual trust and brotherhood,
But the tongue of man twisted those words
And read it as their pride, kept it sacred,
Crowned it above than life—untouched, unquestioned & safe,
A new trade grew in world; religion becomes the commodity—
Its price was War, Eternal hatred its result.
World is one—inhabited by Homo sapiens in all corners
Some prayed to one,
Some to three and some has in millions
Living all alike—a formidable life— forgetting the preeminence of self
Fearing to take longer strides

Those who agreed Sun & Moon are Gods received acclamation
Who called it planet were abandoned and exiled,
Those who believed ‘everything is already written' are named as devotees of God
Who said ‘all power is in human' were seen as Devils,
Those who loved in their community were spared
Who flouted were raped and lynched;

Hatred is tutoring us the lesson to love—
Whom to do and how much,
Those who never held pencil between fingers
Those who are unfamiliar with the toil and effort
One makes in learning to write letters
Today, they are judging us—our handwriting.