gulab khandelwal selected poems

It is easy to create new characters,
It is difficult to follow them;
Grandest images may emerge on the paper,
It is difficult to copy them in life.
I accept,
you have always felt some great idea while writing,
The question, however, is
Whether you ever live
What you have written.
You take the name of Rama from your lips,
But please tell me,
Whether you have decided to become Rama yourself.
When you see a beautiful woman,
Don’t you want to go near her,
Charm her heart with artful devices ?

I accept,
You also, sometimes, behave like great men,
Drink the cup of poison like Socrates,
But even then,
Don’t you want someone to come and tell in your ears,
You will be saved somehow,
And garlanded up to your nose ?”

It is also accepted,
You make wonderful idols of horse-mounted warriors.
From clay,
Tell me.
Don’t you yourself ride on asses?

Of even though you make the image
Of Harishchandra,
Don’t you contradict yourself every often ?

Have you ever thought,
How that fire will touch others
Which has not touched you ?
How a thing will be experienced by others
When it has not reached your heart.
No, simply writing won’t do,
You will have to demonstrate in your behaviour
What you have put on paper;
When words will rise with swords in their hands,
You will have to be the first
To offer your head.

Only that
Which comes out of the heart,
Touches the heart,
I can’t say about actors and artists,
In poetry
It is the genuine feeling of a poet
That matters.