Destiny is not what we make it to be ordained by some super powers,
It descends from the center of universe and shoots down digitally to its object,
Its mystery is awesome, its mystique transcending,
Its message is final.
When Babu was young he was considered by some to be a light-weight,
He had this playful winsome smile playing on his lips,
His thinness was only matched by pencils,
His long nose was innocent compared to many Kaul noses.
Babu grew from a lightweight to the carrier of an intense ambition to win,
He dreamt of many journalistic writings,
In this he was his father’s son,
While still in teens he got an article published in Illustrated Weekly.
He did not put Kaka’s hours, nor was he as humble,
He dreamt of big things, which he thought should come effortlessly to him,
Foreign affairs was his passion, so he took the exam,
Stars seemed not bright enough for him.
He marched on and on, all wheels revving up in a crescendo,
Here was his moment,
He had to make it big,
He cannot lose the chance.
The scooter-riksha wheels went berserk,
Babu in the customer chair yelling at the driver to watch the truck,
Driver annoyed ignores him and drives even faster,
The truck in the opposite direction was coming down the middle of the road.
Destiny is never clear until the last moment,
Then it thumps and whistles and knows its Shiva-moment has come,
Babu felt blessed by destiny’s lips,
The only thing he didn’t know was that truck had its own destiny.
When the two vehicles came to a crash drivers knew they had no choice,
Destiny gives no choices, its command is final,
Babu was in a daze not knowing what happened,
He remained unconscious for three days,
Till the hospital found some bags of flesh behind a door,
Sub-dural pressure was relieved and Babu swathe light.
IFS was a distant dream broken rudely,
All the universe seemed a mad dance,
Destiny is the only thing that seemed to matter,
Forty-seven years later he was yet in front of another destiny,
A fire started by his fellow-humans.
Suffern, New York, August 6, 2019
maharaj.kaul@yahoo.com
