Poetry
Rhapsody on an Agra night
At Agra did Shah Jahan
A stately marble dome decree
Where Jamuna the sacred river ran
Through meadows measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea… Sitting under a waning moon
on the parapet wall of Agra Grand Hotel,
I was trying to parody Coleridge's great poem
'Kubla Khan'.
Three nights had elapsed since 'Dol Purnima',
We hadn't seen the Taj yet.
(The sighting of it in full moon
would be 'na-mumkin' anyway.)
What if I were allowed near the Taj
on this hot night?
Would there be a "woman
wailing for her demon lover"?
We were holding scotch in our hands,
thanks to Dr Laal:
he had brought back this duty-free 'maal'
from Germany
and asked us to a boozing circuit.
Others were appreciating Bhagat Singh's
martyrdom on the docu-film downstairs.
We chose to be Ghalib of glasses instead.
Someone mused like Bahadur Shah Zafar :
"Umre daraz maang ke layethi chaar din;
Du arzoo mein kat gaye,
do intezaar mein!" Faraway from martyrdoms and wait,
a mist of mystic ihsas formed
in one corner of the sky.
It soon condensed into a cloud,
then crystallized into a teardrop
on the cheek of Mumtaz.
Nobody saw it before Tagore did
-- he caught it in the web of his white beard. Salaam Gurudev!
You should have been here with us tonight
sharing Ajeetji's hospitality!
And Dr Laal's!
A stately marble dome decree
Where Jamuna the sacred river ran
Through meadows measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea… Sitting under a waning moon
on the parapet wall of Agra Grand Hotel,
I was trying to parody Coleridge's great poem
'Kubla Khan'.
Three nights had elapsed since 'Dol Purnima',
We hadn't seen the Taj yet.
(The sighting of it in full moon
would be 'na-mumkin' anyway.)
What if I were allowed near the Taj
on this hot night?
Would there be a "woman
wailing for her demon lover"?
We were holding scotch in our hands,
thanks to Dr Laal:
he had brought back this duty-free 'maal'
from Germany
and asked us to a boozing circuit.
Others were appreciating Bhagat Singh's
martyrdom on the docu-film downstairs.
We chose to be Ghalib of glasses instead.
Someone mused like Bahadur Shah Zafar :
"Umre daraz maang ke layethi chaar din;
Du arzoo mein kat gaye,
do intezaar mein!" Faraway from martyrdoms and wait,
a mist of mystic ihsas formed
in one corner of the sky.
It soon condensed into a cloud,
then crystallized into a teardrop
on the cheek of Mumtaz.
Nobody saw it before Tagore did
-- he caught it in the web of his white beard. Salaam Gurudev!
You should have been here with us tonight
sharing Ajeetji's hospitality!
And Dr Laal's!
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