Shoeless you did walk
Broken glass on routes
With bloodshed in riots
Soles bruised sorely bled.
Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma, a renowned poet from Himachal Pradesh, India shares poems from his book ‘Eyes of Silence’, published in 2020, to pay homage to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was assassinated on Jan 30, 1948
Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, India, Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma, born in 1952, has published ten books of English poetry which include ‘Man with A Horn’, ‘Eyes of Silence’ and ‘There’s No Death’. His book, A Three- Step Journey, is English translation of Zahid’s Urdu poems. ‘Icicles of Time’ is the latest in 2024. Sharma was conferred with ‘Master of Creative Impulse’ at World Poetry Conference in 2019. A former Principal, Government College, Dharamshala, he has been anthologized in several books of poetry, stories and such books of academic interest as 21st Century Critical Thought: A Dialogue with Post-Modern Voices Vol I, (2020), A Handbook of Contemporary Ethics, (2024), Ed by Molly Joseph and JS Anand
Shoeless in Noakhali
I
The year forty seventh
Of twentieth century
How could you plug ears
To bar the cries of rioters
Twin nations at birth
Tearing at each other
With swords and knives
Violence ripped honor
Conversations ceased
Bouts of shrill shouting
Made headlines/ stray
Acts to protect the other
Assailed loot and arson
II
Shoeless you did walk
Broken glass on routes
With bloodshed in riots
Soles bruised sorely bled.
Your presence for peace
You did chide the niece
As she warmed the water
To wash the cuts in soles
Many hardly get wood-fire
In kitchen to cook meals
Can only walk barefooted
Where is shed the blood
Of your fellowmen
Shoeless Walked in Noakhali.
***

Prayer
Wherever you are/ Sons of Man
Neither a Hindu Muslim Parsee
Nor a Christian of any color
May not the medieval shadow
Darken the future scenario
Nor sedition threaten the free
In merry joy live the poor cow
And the prosperous calf be free
To dream and share and to laugh
Beware beware/ Listen friends
Of rhyming Babari with Dadri
Forget not the icons you adore
Vivekanand Gandhi and Tagore
Shaheed-e- Aazam who wrote
Why am I an atheist/ forget not
Glory of country and its men
Over- rides conversations regional
The religiously and sectarian
A blind devotion to the man in saddle
Degrades rule of law/ says Ambedkar
God like sun moon trees and rivers
Say bojour salut to one and to all.
***
Eyes of Silence
Fog gets fairly thick
Even as the sun sets
And it’s rises on time
In- between sets in night
With a faint wick
Each candle burns
For the March carries on
Defusing the fog in the dark.
Stray dogs whine a bark
Rich pets wag their tails
Or moan/ heads on paws
A polity of skyscrapers
Has plenty of escalators
Fog sails thru windows
Doors split at footfalls
A choiceless state waits
Must know at what time
To step on and step off
The active escalator.
__________________
Read: On Being Non-Violent