July 19, 2016
Keepers of Destiny
A friend gifted me a tiny booklet on a winter afternoon in
Dehradun.
Those first few lines by Vivekanand, touched me somewhere
deep down and have clung to memory since..
“Education is
the manifestation
Of the perfection
Inherent in man.”
…..Monsoon Rivers
The sky is grey and heavy
With the rain in its womb
The first few drops hesitate
And the rest follow in a tumbling rush.
The first few drops hesitate
And the rest follow in a tumbling rush.
I watch
The drops hit the window pane
And trickle down in streaks
Flowing with gay abandon.
The drops hit the window pane
And trickle down in streaks
Flowing with gay abandon.
Like children rushing to play
The streaks sparkle, stop suddenly on tiptoe
And change direction…
And change direction…
Slippering across
Without constraints or boundaries.
Masters of their own destiny.
In the soundless stillness
Masters of their own destiny.
In the soundless stillness
There
is only the sight of raindrops
Falling on the leaves
And shaking them in the rain.
I
feel the tug of their exhilaration
And
in the whisper of their silence
I hear their rustling laughter.
The fragile fabric of hoarded self-illusions
Fragments in the wind
And
the song of the monsoon rivers
Echoes
through the falling rain.
The raindrops wane
And the rainbows peep out
To
dance on the gossamer spray.
* * *
As the monsoon rivers
Seep
into the earth
They
whisper:
“Nurture and sustain
The tender little shoots
Hold them gently
And give to them of your
warmth
For in their tiny palms
They carry their
childhood
And cradled in their innocence
Lies the oneness and the freedom
We all aspire to be.”
In times to come when they are grown tall
And walk their own path
We will watch the
rain and the wind once again.
And be what
we have always been:
- Keepers
of our own destiny.
