Difficulty of Being Good: WEEK 49, BELGAUM, INDIA

THE SONG OF THE SENSIBLE

by Gorakh Pandey

What way the winds blow, I can understand

Why we show our backs to it, I can understand

I understand the meaning of blood

The value of money I understand

What is for and what is against, I can understand

I even understand this

We are scared to be able to understand, and remain silent.

I can understand the meaning of remaining quiet

When we speak we speak with thinking and understanding

The freedom to speak

Its meaning, I can understand

For a pathetic and measly employment

To sell our freedom, the meaning of that I can understand

But what can we do

When unemployment

Rises faster than the injustice

The dangers of freedom and unemployment, I understand

We narrowly escape the dangers of terror

I can understand

Why we escape and get saved, this too I can understand.

We remain disappointed and are pained by the Almighty if he does not just remain an imagination

We remain disappointed and are pained by the Government why it does not understand

We remain disappointed and pained by the common man because it succumbs to a herd mentality.

We remain pained by the pain of the entire world

I can understand

But how much we remain pained by this pain this too

I can understand

That opposition is the desired step to take

I can understand

At every step we make compromising understandings

I can understand

We make deep commitments for this understanding

Every deep commitment we present in ambiguous language

I can understand

The reason for this ambiguous language also

I understand.

Incidently, we do not consider ourselves

Less than anyone, I can understand

Every black to white

And white to black we are capable of converting

We are capable of creating a storm in a tea cup

If we want we can start a revolution also

If the Government is weak and the common man understanding

But I can understand

That there is nothing that we can do

Why there is nothing that we can do

This too I can understand.

The above a poem by poet Gorakh Pandey and my very inept translation. It was given to me by a my friend of a Hindi Daily, when he came to meet me on the occasion of my Birthday.

The poet Gorakh Pandey was a troubled human. Intelligent and anguished by the state of the nation. He had wanted to inspire with his writing and the strength of his thinking. When he failed he committed suicide. He was a brilliant student from the Benares Hindu University and later was with JNU – Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

The entire day has been spent in office discussing and watching strategic presentations.