SMRUTI RANJAN MOHANTY

SMRUTI RANJAN MOHANTY

A LOOK AT LIFE-27

I am not just too old

To look forward to life

Its beauty and grandeur

I am not young enough either

To be in any one's dream

Or anyone to be in mine

Life was spent in vain

In weaving and fulfilling

Dreams of others

I realized it

But late

When half the life

Was in the ashtray

I know

How painful and agonizing

It is

To carry the burden

Of hopes and aspirations

Which are not your's

How foolish it is to expect

Your unrealised dreams realised

Through someone else

How difficult

It is to walk on the path of life

Loosing and forgetting

One's identity,whims and fancies

Beyond a limit

Man is all alone

For he fancies the most

To live in his secluded world

So different from

His loved one's

I am not the one

To confine to a solitary asylum

Or to live in a fool's paradise

Brooding over the past

I know

The new sun,fresh and lively

Is about to rise on the horizon

And I am

For the first time

Not under any one's spell

With all my freedom and detachment

Let me cherish all that is true and beautiful

And look at life

Its splendor and elegance

Once more

A LOOK AT LIFE-26

Let me live my life

The way you lived it

With all love and passion

Far from today's rational world

In the beauty of nature

Let me enjoy my early childhood

Relish every bit of it

The way you did

In your good old days

Let me dance and play

Fly in the beautiful world

Of prince and princesses

Fairies and ghosts

And let me have all those moments

Which once you had

Just do not make me

A prisoner of your unrealized dreams and aspirations

Do not make me an oblation

In your sacrificial rituals

To go up and up

In the ladder

Which never ends

I am just another kid

Like those in the hamlet

I envy them

Envy their lives

Envy everything

They have

The carefree life

That freedom and open childhood

Which I do not have

I fell suffocated

When I find my childhood in chains

Give me that breathing space

To breathe

And look at the world

As it is

Even for a while

I ever doubt

Your love, affection and

Concern to see me at the top

But for a moment

Just get me out of the seclusion

The heap of books

The monotonous life

The values of the larger society

The burden of hopes and ambitions

Just enable me to have a glimpse

At childhood

It's beauty, charm and elegance

A LOOK AT LIFE-24

A look at life is incomplete

Without a look at death

A peep into its mystery

Its science

Language and chemistry

No doubt

Life is beautiful

But death is still more beautiful

More enchanting more bewitching

For it makes life full and

Gives once more a chance

To look at life and go ahead

In the path of eternity

If life is a feast

Death is sheer poetry

An artist's dream

Who makes an art of life

If life is a sojourn

Death is a station

Where one gets down

Look at himself and

Prepares for the journey

Anew and afresh

To have a go at the destination

Ultimate and inevitable

The beauty of life

Lies in a beautiful death

Which puts an end

To those toiling days

Agonising nights

The predicaments and contradictions

The unfulfilled desires

The negative emotions

Acquisitive instincts

Unrealised dreams and broken hearts

Which hunt one all along

And death makes the beast of burden

A man once again

But

One has to prepare for it

The way one plans and prepares

To live a life

The art of dyeing is more difficult

Than the craft of living

Living requires involvement

Engrossment and a deep sense of attachment

While dyeing needs nothing

Only one has to look back

And analyse the life

He has lived

The relationship

He shared over the years

One has to dive deep into life

To understand

The futility and fragility

Of human relationship

And its obvious limitations

Bound by

Time space and causation

A look into life

Unbiased and unprejudiced

Will show the way

And put an end to all cravings

And will prepare the mind and body

To embrace the beauty of life

With ease

And a smile on lips.

SMRUTI RANJAN MOHANTY