gulab khandelwal selected poems

I ask forgiveness,
But I doubt very much
Whether you will be able to forgive me,
Whether you will be able to clasp me in your arms,
Transgressing all your self-made laws.

It appears to me,
Although omnipotent,
You are yourself equally helpless and powerless.
Imprisoned in your own net like a spider,
You are even less free than myself.

If you had those feelings
Which make me weep every now and then,
Why should these natural calamities
Happen every now and then
Which smack of a heartless autocracy?

How could you dispassionately watch
The sobs of a father
By the grave of his son?
Hear the lamentation of a young wife
Beside the corpse of her husband ?
Bear with the cries of a forlorn child
For its dead parents?

But whether you forgive me or not,
I have no alternative.
It is you and you alone
That I have asked for forgiveness.
Whenever a storm of repentance
Has arisen in my heart.
It is you alone I have called in tears.