BAPU - TWO DIGITS

Today, October 2
your birthday
Bapu
Father of our Nation
Pranam ( Big Salute).
Your photos
that specs
toothless smile
innocence flashing
past your eyes and face,
seeming to be carved forever
frames hung
on the walls of
schools
colleges
hospitals
offices
police stations
courts
corridors of power
you like the
omnipresent God.
Your statues
installed at
almost every nook and corner
across the nation
but none seems to notice you
except on the dates of
your birth and martyrdom
garlanded and prayer meetings
held to celebrate the festival of freedom
then forgotten within seconds.
The changing cycles of climate
the heavy downpour,
scorching sun,
birds resting
and shitting on
your bald head
and fluttering wings
they fly away
and you remaining witness to
all the unhappy goings on
around
the sheer hypocrisy
clad in khadi.
Never, ever
your photos framed
your statues installed
while you were
among us.
Criss-crossed you
the entire Bharat
exhorted you
each Indian
to wage a non-violent
struggle
to join civil-disobedience
for the much coveted
freedom
braving lathis,
bullets and batons
undergoing fasts
earned you for us
our long-cherished boon,
lifted you the colonial yoke,
of the British imperialists
from our hung shoulders.
In the twilight years of your
life
witnessed you with
a heavy heart
a life-line getting broken
and the horrendous sight of
brother pitted against brother
rivers of blood.
Nathuram Godse
in the guise of God
aimed the gun at you
triggered once, twice, thrice
but Bapu
still we suffocate
under the heavy weight of
the colonial yoke
of a different kind.
And now we witness
megalomaniacs and Tuglaqs
erecting their own statues
in their own lifetime
to remain eternal
that is for the posterity to decide
but these fools
never know that eternal truth
security cover
provided to the statues
round the clock
that's our lot.
Lucky you Bapu,
if alive today
guns would have been
pointed at you
and shot at
not once twice, thrice,
but round the clock
reducing you to pulp.
Bapu,
you have got shrunk
two digits
to be recalled
each year.
Destiny,
what not?