A Prayer For My Daughters: Alok Bhalla

Image of Two Sisters, painting by Indrani Acharya

Alok Bhalla

LIFE never says
this is ‘my good’
this ‘my bad’
this seed will blossom
this lie fallow.
An apple is sweet in infinite ways
and there’s no fixed flight for birds
and every path leads to other trails
and there are thorns under rose bushes
and there are signs and songs for seekers
and words understood or misunderstood
and strangest stories from seas beyond the sun
and the strongest strategies for the soul’s survival.
What other splendour can the stars promise?
What other destiny can life’s breath offer
except the search, the failure and the search?
So be a visionary at the door of your dreams
wait as the wind changes from salt to cinnamon
since life only offers choices, not desolate fate,
see that sparkle in the sand as the wind scuttles slowly,
catch the omen of the harvest rain in time’s furrows … 
and there is always an unknown friend near the bend
with an unexpected story to tell and a chance gift in hand.
So, search here and there    here-and-there
and here    and    there
and here-and-there    and there    here
and    there   and   there
here-there   and here
there   and there
and everywhere.
Wherever there is life and work 
there are chances
and new things to do
that pop-up like fireflies once you open your eyes and look.

No firefly says
this is ‘my good’
this ‘my bad’.

********

Alok Bhalla is at present, a visiting professor of English at Jamia Millia Islamia. He is the author of Stories About the Partition of India (3 Vols.). He has also translated Dharamvir Bharati’s Andha Yug, Intizar Husain’s A Chronicle of the Peacocks (both from OUP) and Ram Kumar’s The Sea and Other Stories into English.
Alok Bhalla in The Beacon
WHEN KABIR SAW, HE WEPT…
Ahimsa in the City of the Mind: Language, Identity-Politics and Partitions
Stand by Me: Song of a Farmer
The Self As Stranger 
I Am A Hindu

 

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