Eighty years of life
on this Earth
Was it worth?
I had a thought on your funeral.
Eighty years ago in heaven
when you were just the soul
and wanted to forever become
a part of this whole
You urged God to grant you a life
And promised
you would this time achieve your goal
But did you keep your promise at all?
I had a thought on your funeral.
The aim of your taking birth was
Service, contribution and asceticism
You instead chose
Hoarding, platitude and hedonism
God prescribed
Love, joy and compassion
On your life you inscribed
Jealousy, gloom and repression
I had a thought on your funeral.
Childhood’s dawn wiped out in dependence
Lust devoured on the morning of adolescence
Youth’s noon you squandered
due to fear and apprehension
Dusk of old age got totaled in
egotism, vanity and pretension
I had a thought on your funeral.
I asked myself
Was I any different from you?
Was I keeping my own promise to God?
The response from within came in negative
My heart did not give the nod
Seeing you sleeping in God’s lap
with a performance that was dismal
Your funeral appeared to me
as God’s signal
And I realized I had a chance to change
before I reached my own burial.
I had a thought on your funeral.
(30.08.2011; New Delhi; India)