Of Memory, Hate, Hope and Generous Imagination
Hyderabad Rocks
Boulders are periods,
commas and marks of
exclamation or interrogation,
sculpted in love,
seasoned in abandon,
they are bookmarks mottled by time,
condensed, heartfelt and sacred
like words in a quatrain,
waiting for the paintbrush
of imagination to consecrate them.
Harvesting Gods: Poems, Satya Mohanty, Speaking Tiger, 2025.
Harvesting Gods
What if the crops failed,
jobs dried up as a dying river,
and the economy shrunk like an ageing man,
losing in three dimensions,
God is always there to be harvested.
What if the spin of yarn is a tangled knot,
a great mess-up or a territory lost,
soldiers killed by the incursers,
enemy is omnipresent as God
helping to twist it into a tale of triumph.
What if our present looks violated,
in the crowded halls of arrivals and departures
of social media,
we would finally be brewing the elixir of the past
for concocting the future.
§
Patriotism
Patriotism is a predator
that stalks with eyes of tricolour.
A paintbrush to pour colour
on the tabula rasa of mind,
wiped clean of history, experience and wisdom.
All that remains in the end,
“We” and “them”,
“they” merge with us
when it suits,
“we” remain standing apart,
when their hearts are to be carved
to find a blackened soul
of a nation; as dark as charcoal.
§
Hope
Hope, like ficus,
can take root in nothing.
It just needs so little;
stones, a crumb of earth,
will do as an anchor
in a landscape of despondency.
Then it can grow skyward
with sunshine and air.
The enveloping darkness
a wee hour ago
becomes forgotten weeds
after a long winter.
§
A Country with a New Name
Weeds of yesteryears
come back as fresh bloom,
we accept a future which is ancient.
In an air
lambent with belief
we allowed them to imagine us.
Hatred is the ambience now,
hatred for others,
hatred for the self,
hate for everything around.
Love has gone on a Sabbath
when bare hands became fists.
Gangsters are in power,
lawbreakers make rules.
Killers are declared martyrs
and sinners become angels.
We find neither night disappearing
nor the dawn nearing.
The above poems are from Satya Mohanty's book Harvesting Gods.
Satya Mohanty is Former Secretary to GOI.
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