gulab khandelwal selected poems

You have put me in great perplexity today.
Oh, What a question, my child!
‘Why did I create feelings of sorrow and pain?
Why is there occasion of separation in life?
As in the distant stars,
Some thing is always happening,
Always a storm is rising,
Always a volcano is erupting,
Still no one cries with pain
No one is full of anxieties there,
Neither is any one under awe of separation,
Nor is anyone restless to meet someone.
Why. is there not the same dispassionateness
On this earth ?
Why so much groaning, so much crying
Everywhere?’

How should I reply,
I don’t know.
I want to take you in my arms
And carry you to those very places you referred
Where, in spite of every thing,
There is no consciousness,
No feelings of love, no emotions of hatred.
Does the heart of a mother leap with joy there
Hearing the chuckles of her baby?
Does there the wife’s heart start dancing
On the return of her husband
From a distant land?
Does the friendship of two friends
Shine there also like the sun
Through the dark clouds of sorrow?
I accept,
There are no feelings of pain there,
But I have created this earth,

Being bored by that very state of loneliness.
Every atom of this earth reflects my image,
Every throbbing of its heart
Resounds with my heart-beats.
Tell me,
Where would have I found you
On those solitary stars,
Where there is neither father nor son,
Brother nor sister,
Husband nor wife.
There are no joys of reunion,
Thrills of hope,
Colorfulness of imagination there,
Only a futile dance of matter,
A lifeless thronging of atoms everywhere,
Devoid of all feelings of sympathy or love.
My heart was anxious to hear a word of praise
But no one was there to give me that.
There was dispassionateness, desertedness
And unending silence
All around.
I have started this drama of life
Simply to laugh and talk with you.
Neither am I alone
Nor are you alone now.