The autumn leaves falling-
Ah! A fresh spring and tender leaves will grace
The stretch of moor and the barren crags
Left beyond my vision, beyond a stone’s throw.

‘Hello!’ I say to Tomorrow,’ do come inside’,
Shaking hands with what’s held in future.
‘I am here’, says he,’ what do you want from me?’
A new life. A happy start and a happy ending.

Apun ka na koi aggu na pichhu…. aap apne sochye- (from Lavaris)
[Nobody’s before or behind me….you think of yourself]

Even from afar the tune was quite perceptible…
 
Hum honge kaamyaab, hum honge kamyaab….
Hum honge kaamyaab ek din.
[We shall overcome, we shall overcome…
We shall overcome one day.]

…and nothing remains.

Hope.
The falling star.
Triumph.
Hibernating in no man’s land.
Spirit.
Fizzed out of bottle of soda. [No pun intended]
Love.
The reluctant dog’s tail. [Never straightens]
Life.
The moon bitten off to a crescent.
No shine remains.
No capacity to radiate.
An attacking weapon, seemingly ever aggressive.
No charm remains.
Days.
The dull and casted sky.
Ever the same.

Where’s hope. Something I called:

Aakar itna paas fire¢ wohh sachha shoor nahi hai,
Thak’kar baith gaye kya bhai, manzeel door nahi hai. (Harivansh Rai Bacchhan)
[One who comes so near and returns yet, is not so brave;
Are you tired brother, but the goal is not far.]

Eh! I am cold now; I was hot.
"Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
for ever and ever when I move…
to follow knowledge like a sinking star,
beyond the utmost bound of human thought..
..to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
of all western seas…
(and again)
..I would like to drink life to the lees.."
and I say- I am not Ulysses. [Adapted from Tennyson’s Ulysses]

The sinking star. I followed it, not in the quest of knowledge, but of a treasure. It was always a little too many paces ahead of me, beyond the stone’s throw.

Twinkle, twinkle little stars
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the sky so high
Like a wonder in the sky!

[And after death]

Here lies the tomb of the warrior,
One who fought life in the Battle,
One who had no defined enemies, save one.
(And the one whom it took a life to recognize)
_______________________________________
[In this world
The one who can torture best
Is the one so bright,
O and the irony of fate
That I am in love with those so bright!]
(-Shamsher Bahadur Singh, translated by myself)

May the afterlife be soothing,
May not the ghosts of past trouble him,
Let no wreath be laid on his grave,
Let no man part a tear,
Let no man talk of him at the morning tea,
Let no man recall the Great Warrior,
Unfortunately who lost,
(For there was nothing to win)
Amen!
-Mid ’97,Calcutta-43

COMMENTS :

The original manuscript contained much more stuff which might seem out of place here although at the time of composition it wasn’t in the least so. In fact Epitaph was a bilingual composition (English and Hindi) and hence much part had to be truncated for this presentation. Many parts were taken from popular poems in both Hindi and English; there is also an instance in which a dialogue from the Hindi film, starring Amitabh Bacchan, son of Harivansh Rai Bachan (who has been quoted in the above poem) Lavaris (Forsaken) has been taken. The last part of Epitaph contains a passage that bears a resemblance with Thomas Hardy’s character Michael Henchard’s last will from The Mayor of Casterbridge.

[Michael Henchard’s Will

That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me.
& that I be not bury’d in consecrated ground.
& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell.
& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.
&that no murners walk behind me at my funeral.
& that no flours be planted on my grave.
& that no man remember me.
To this I put my name.

-Michael Henchard.]

The author acknowledges the influence.

This poem is so complex and so mature that it is beyond my competence now to comment upon it or criticize it. The most that can be said that it was written at a point of extreme dejection, and it laughs upon death in the same manner as John Donne had done centuries before:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow;
And sooner our best men with thee do go-
Rest of their bones, and souls’ delivery!
Thou’rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

(It is, however, to be impressed that the poem was composed much before the author knew anything about Donne, Undone, or Ann Donne. He just knew that he himself was undone.)

I, thus, leave it to the comprehension of the reader who would be a better judge of the meaning and merit of the poem.