Poems of Dr Jernail S Aanand / India

ABUDDHA

On seeing an old man,
A palsied man
And a dead man,
Buddha turned grave
And left the kingdom.

I am also tempted like him
But where are the luxuries
To be abandoned?
Where is the kingdom?
Where is Yashoda? (name of his wife)

I have already abandoned everything.
My kingdom, my home
My heaven, my family
What will I abandon
Even if I see a palsied man?

I am already Abuddha
Sitting under the scanty shade
Of a concrete building
Adding to the count .
The palsied, the old and the dead

The Bodh tree was cut down years back,
Its leaves ground into
A million napkins
Which were used to clean
The wisdom of centuries off my mind.

Finding me an abandoned man myself.
Gods took pity on me
They brought the forest for me
And made me sit
In the shade of the Bodh tree

Soon I saw the illusion disintegrate
And wisdom dawn on me.
Every passion was a Mirage
Which bless or unbless humanity
Within I saw saplings of the Bodh tree

Jernail S Aanand

🌺


SUFFERING: GOD'S ED

Everyone
Who is suffering
In body and mind
Is not necessarily a victim.

Suffering is always self invited
And self created
Even when some outside agency
Inflicts it.

In fact, we who are armed
With a brain
And charmed by its powers
Are overreachers.

We are controlled by
A highly sophisticated app
In which nobody can suffer
For doings of others

In society
There are powerful people
And agencies which bring
Injustice, oppression and pain

The very idea of injustice
Entails that
One party is blameless
Which is never so.

Angels won't take such blemish
Of partisan conduct
They make things happen
By themselves.

There is no pain uncaused
By you yourself
Only we don't know
When and how.

Life is a dish
Which does not come to us
From behind.
What WE cook is served to us.

PS:

Are my claims bloated and unsupported?
A poet only feels.
Yes there is a lot of injustice
And the powerful inflict it.

It is obvious
The law system is flourishing
Because justice is not done
And it has to be got done.

Men suffer obviously due to
The misuse of power
By few at the top.
Have gods given them license?

Those who play foul with us
And bring us to self-realization
Isn't it justice
Disguised as injustice?

Monsters have no other function
Except to strike
Where they are trained to,
Obviously by God's ED.

There is no hell outside Heaven
As man's mind is a haven
For both
Evil is God's police which settles scores.

(*ED stands for Enforcement Directorate, A Govt Dept which takes care of financial violators)

Dr Jernail S Aanand