Wanted Father

Father!

Let me pride on you thinking about you for once.

When I strain to figure you out

Your hands dragging my mother

Catching her by hair come to mind.

And the stamp of your foot on my neck

Still stands like a tattoo.

My childy little hands

That pleaded you unknowingly

Still grip those childhood nightmares.

Father!

I just long to like you before I die.

When you flash in my memory

Even the dozy eyelids at midnight

Open with fright shedding deep slumber

Recalling your ebriated babble and bluster.

Your troubled life seeking after justice

Shivers me in my shoes.

My cheeks numbed with your slaps

Fail to convey the sense of tears rolling to the heart.

I yearn to wail heartily for you

You thought you could whip with your words for ever.

The leather you suppressed the siblings with

Would never give in.

But, the same hands and legs

Badly seek a support now and

Your soul craves for a touch of love and affection.

All of a sudden you expect

Your children discharge their filial piety,

And the wife to forget all her heart-aches

And condescend to serve.

Father!

I want to love you instinctively before I die.

True!

You pampered my brother

Buying him new kids wear.

And once in a while, say, for BHOGI

You bathed us three children.

True!

By icing your love with five-star chocolates

You converted my sis to your way.

But

You haven’t learnt

What a father be like.

He must give life to his children,

Be a splendid ornament to my mother,

And a paradigm of reassurance.

Father!

I want to talk proud of you before you die.

Father!

I want to reclaim you before I die.

...............

Translated by N.S.Murthy