Side-Tracking Poem by Bipin Patsani

The call for avenging the historic blunders
in the past, a thousand year old plunder, in fact,
is nothing but deviation that stems from
the fear of the fall from power and position
as the shadow of failure surrounds the present
and the hand that holds the helm
is unable to meet the challenges of the time.

How far should we look back to take revenge,
how many years, centuries and millenniums?
Is it just a thousand years back,
two thousand or more?
Won't we scan who did what
those fateful days of yore?
Should we not talk of The Kalinga War,
a war imposed on us
to crush our people's pride and honour?
Ought not we go back to the time
when monasteries were burnt, devastated,
monks were butchered, buried
and many more were made to flee?
How intense, how much widespread
our revenge is going to be?

A malicious fanatic clown, the self-styled crown,
who mocks at the makers of our destiny
and acts on whims,
dooms generations and generations drown.

Creative fire makes the mind
beautiful and warm,
while the hellfire of hatred and revenge
burns the being and causes immense harm.