Dr SANTOSH BAKAYA

Dr. SANTOSH BAKAYA


THE NEW RAINBOW

“Mother, why does the rainbow not have the color black?”
The tiny   boy, asked his mother, bent on a furnace in the shack.
“It has only violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red
Answer me, mother, only then will I have that piece of bread.”

“Let me work, son”, said the mother, slogging away in the shack
The night descended, blanketing him in more  hues of black.
The stars crept out of their lairs to cavort in their starry track
The moon smiled, the sleepy stars opened their eyes a crack.

Of soothing sad kids, these twinkling stars had a special knack
One was naughty enough to hit him with a scintillating smack.
In the skies of his mind, he painted a rainbow, adding black.
The stars watched amused, stopping suddenly in their track.

The wandering clouds gently hugged the shimmering moon
Floating in the air, came a genial genie, as an absolute boon.
He smiled sweetly, twinkling his charm, coochie-cooing to him
Followed a benevolent looking wizard looking majestically trim.

A unique rainbow was born in the new dawn of his mind
This eight colored rainbow was indeed one of its kind.
With a proprietorial air, to his chest, he hugged this surreality
Naively, making it a part of his dark world’s bright reality.









THE DREAMER AND HIS DREAM

On a sweltering summer day of August 28, 1963
At Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
To a dreamer’s sweeping oratory
In a seminal moment in a nation’s trajectory
Thousands swayed passionately.
His prophetic words ebbed and flowed, and the tempo
Reached a crescendo of hope
For those manacled in centuries of segregation
Tethered to chains of humiliating discrimination.

His powerful baritone, rang passionately.
Why were some deprived of life and liberty,
Languished in poverty, suffered police brutality
While others flourished in prosperity?
There would be no rest, no tranquility
Until the jangling discords sublimated into a symphony
And freedom rang bringing justice for all.

1963 was not the end, but the beginning
Of an epoch started by a crown less King.
Then came the year 2008, the month November
The dream ignited by one ember
Crackled, and came to fruition.

“A Black man in the White House”, newspapers screamed
Obama had become president, because King had dreamed.

Let us dream on, for dignified life and racial tolerance
Celebration of dissent and glorification of difference.
And be suffused in love’s universal fragrance











AND THEN CAME KING

From Montgomery to Memphis peace he waged
Pleading for wings to the centennially caged
Against physical assaults and racial slurs
And treatment meted out as though to curs.
Tired of being trampled over by ' iron feet of oppression'
In Montgomery, people slumbered in an uneasy   placidity
Bogged down by habitual timidity.
Then came King on the scene
To set things right immensely keen.





A people emotionally and psychologically assaulted
Out of their slumber were jolted
When Rosa Parks refused to give her seat
To a white man in a segregated bus.
They walked on and on for 381 days
With blisters on their feet
Trudging along to freedom’s beat.
Shunning the buses, walked they with intense passion
In rage, Bull Connors seethed and atrocities unleashed.
The non-violent warriors walked on, singing freedom songs
Hitting at a nation’s wrongs.

“I am not walking for myself,
I’m walking for my children and grandchildren,”
Said a woman old, ploughing forth, determined her tread.
On 25 December, 1956, buses were integrated
Justice had come, though belated.

Dr SANTOSH BAKAYA
 INDIA

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