gulab khandelwal selected poems

O loving mother!
Why have you decorated me
In such bright clothes?
Though you have placed a flute in my hands,
Why have you fixed this peacock-feather on my head?
My heart wishes to play on the flute,
Lying on the green grass
To swim in the muddy waters
Like a swan;
To call you like a cuckoo
From the branches of the mango tree,
But my adorations have become
The chain of my feet.
Though free to fly,
The parrot of my heart has become
A prisoner of the golden cage.
Perhaps, in the indulgence of your love,
You forgot,
Every flute-player is not a god.
He, like other cow-herds,
Dances with joy in his victories,
Weeps bitterly in his losses.
O loving mother !
Though you have outwardly decorated me
Like a yellow-robed lord,
Why have you made me
Inwardly so weak and tender?