Silent Festivals Poem by Alexander Raju

There was a time when we celebrated
All festivals just for your merriments;
Years passed and one day you left your parents,
Like free birds, flew away and migrated!

Palm-Sundays with coconut-leaves and flowers,
Good Fridays with sad prayers and penance,
Christmas and Easter pass in dull silence,
And we live in memories' sweet bowers.

Every auspicious day we expected
And patiently near the phone hours waited
At least for a belated call from you,
To hear that your employer didn't give leave.

You were busy and drove your luxury car
With your pretty children and their mother,
You safely rod ahead your car so far,
Without caring for your followers old.

Just like us our car was exhausted
Of travelling too far, but you could have,
At times, looked into your rear-view mirror
And checked whether we were behind or not!

Going much ahead, you may think of us
And turn your head back only to realize
That you missed us long back somewhere behind
And search us everywhere never to find.