Orphanage

Across the river Along my way Between home and school There was an orphanage Children used to frolic There in sheer abandon Oblivious Of their parentless misfortune Some among them were blind Others deaf Some handicapped Yet they were happy As though on a merry-go-round Filled to the brim with joy The warden then had said With moist eyes Look boy, this is a temple Bapu once sat Right under that mango tree Looking at the children play With a toothless smile This is no orphanage The kids have the nation’s parentage More than fifty years thence I crossed the same river Now totally desecrated In every sense It no more had The sugary sand beds Of the past To boast about She lay weeping In rationed tears Bunded at every place By greedy farmers Abandoned by the rains Sacrileged by stinking drains The orphanage had gone And there was a bar Of four or five stars With glittering lights Right at its place I asked a passerby What happened To the nest of the past That sheltered The wingless birds Orphanage? He sneered Well, look, that place Belongs to our leader A socialist to the hilt A philanthropist right to core Whose father Was a freedom fighter Yonder across the street He built that magnificent temple For Mother Durga Where we prostrate Morning and evening Blessed is he Would have built the shrine Right here close to the bar Hadn’t stupid laws of the land Wanted a distance Between prayer and bar He is great Of secular mind Employs several hands Of every faith The CM of the State Dines at his house When in town Don’t waste your time Over the ones That vanished With an orphanage I looked around in vain No care center was found On the ancient land of mine That instilled in the mind A sense of national parentage If there were any By the name They were labeled By faith and creed Where no Indians frolicked No mango-tree to sight With a Bapu under it And as I looked around I saw only orphans abound Orphaned of parentage Orphaned of virtues Orphaned of values And orphaned at last of God By whom all of them swore Orphaned of love for their land Orphaned of their motherland Though they all swore By Durga divine Loudly by the Virgin Or by some other saint Utterly fossilized In sectarian concrete Oh, how much I wish Bapu was there And sat in the shade Of a spreading tree Smiling his toothless smile At this teeming orphanage That shames a nation’s name Then comes a passerby Who says he saw The statue of Bapu weep At the city square In the wee hours An orphan rejoined No, that was no tears But the setting moon Shining on morning dew Upon granite stone He was a rationalist Votary of progress That is make-believe Who swore by science And reasoning But forsook his heart To languish in A self-made orphanage And missed the spirit That made nations click