Author: shish_admin
Song of the Nightbird
This poem by Rashi featured in an issue of the renowned children’s newspaper, RobinAge (November 26 – December 09, 2020). It has also been published in a poetry anthology “PS-It’s Poetry”, by the PoetrySoup, a poetry portal.
Deep in the hollow the night at its height,
Song of the nightbird echoing in the quiet,
Stillness as that of the past in our hearts,
As once again the nightbird starts,
Call of the wild in the deep groove,
The nightbird on a constant move,
All across the forest drizzling raindrops,
Shining sapphires, the lovely dew drops,
Reflection in silence in nature’s abode,
Away from the bustle of the angry road,
Tenderly gripping, the greenness of the new,
To the beginnings of those touching the blue,
Magic of the moonlight so mesmerising,
A flurry of emotions slowly arising,
Whispering quietly the flow of the brooks,
Melodies bursting from hidden nooks,
Songs of silence filling the quiet,
Deep in the hollow the night at its height……
The Year with a Perspective…
2020! This year seemed to have a mind of its own. A mind where random thoughts over centuries have accumulated to one unified whole and thus has reacted, responded to show that all is heard, all is seen, all is noted.
As the days of 2020 passed, this perception molded into firmer belief. All the doings of mankind had taken a toll over his own race and Time had come to give us a taste of our own medicine, play our own tunes in retrospective and here we are – two to tango. So left forlorn, feeble and frightened, my poor self started to contemplate as I could feel 2020 breathing on my shoulder and watching me quietly, waiting for me to decipher the code of enlightenment.
However the journey for me had been quite a baffling one in the initial days nettled with fear, anxiety, inhibition, bewilderment; nettled with Why? How? When? Who? and so on. The tag line – ‘This is the new normal’ glaring with its headlight force, simply refused to seep in and register. How could this be the NORMAL?
Well, normal is just normal, isn’t it? It never shouts out to assert its presence, it is just there and we know it. But this weirdo – 2020, the bringer of Evil, could never be accepted as a part of our lives, it could never be accepted as one among us. All forces of the world unanimously agreed upon this and all in unison simply wanted to uproot this maleficent entity and throw it out of the universe to purge our earth of all the impurities and cleanse it again for rejoicing Humanity.
The creator, benefactor, seemed to smile in amusement and pushed forward a simple question – How long would you remain submerged in oblivion? How long would your race wallow in the pride of its superiority? Isn’t it the humans alone who have spread nefarious agents of calamity from time to time?
With this thought a chord in me suddenly untangled.
Well, I can’t truly claim ourselves to be the smartest of the lot now. After all, we misled, misplaced, mismanaged. We took our time to realize Earth. One short film came as an eye opener around midyear. It said – Earth doesn’t need you, it is self-sufficient and sustaining even without you. You are not the commander, but just a visitor. Know your place. Count your blessings. Think, rethink and conjure up ways of gratitude.
It seemed as if the soil under my feet softly slipped away, the glass palace of firm beliefs scattered into pieces. Realization!
Realization- though harsh at times, opens our eyes and saves our day, stops us from making blunders beyond repair. So now, I started unfurling a different side of me! I strongly feel, most of us have taken this journey like me. As a matter of fact, some were blessed to realize early, some took it late.
In our efforts to purge the earth, we ended up purging ourselves of our inner demons. I learnt to look beyond the meager and enjoy the broader view, I learnt to acknowledge and appreciate the little things that life offered and say ‘Please wait’ to colossal targets, I learnt to love and cherish instead of holding bitterness and despair. Rightly quoted by someone – “2020 is not the year to get everything you want. This is the year to appreciate everything you have.”
Thus, in this way, finally I managed to get out of my shell. I feel I finally could decipher the code of enlightenment which 2020 had planned for me. And so, I have rerouted my journey now and am wobbling my amateurish self towards the path of Glory. Now, that I have seen the reason behind the angelic presence of 2020, I dare not call it ominous any more. These days, Time is simply flying away, days are short, nights are shorter-there is so much to do, so much to cherish and so much to give. I don’t feel the warm breath of 2020 upon my shoulder anymore- maybe now that I have realized its worth, it’s slowly slipping out from my hand.
That you can say, is a perspective of my own. After all, it was a year with a perspective, right? An eye-opener, a game turner, an epiphany of life- whatever you may call it. The choice I leave on you.
The Mundane Days of Lockdown
The days of lockdown had been such a bore
Oh Dear Grandma!
The music you could hear day long,
Was quite a variety of snore.
Yes, you heard it right-
Snoring, snoring and snoring all the way,
2020 had been after all, a long, lazy Sunday.
The weeks passed by dilly dally
No rush, no care,
No alarms on Monday morns,
No fright of the boss’ piercing stare.
Oh! What a year it had been!
Unique- one of a kind,
One, that decades had never seen.
Sleep and eat, eat and sleep
Snoring to glory, in unison of rhythmic beats.
Yeah, that had been quite like the routine of the day,
A year of exile, a year of solitude, a year of recluse,
You may say.
Oh Dear Grandma!
How I wish you lived to see this day!
It could soothe your longing to have us your playmates
It could rest your anxiety,
And fill your home with chirpy, exuberant days.
Oh! How you sighed with longing eyes and shriveled hands bare!
As our days evaporated in thin air,
Unlike you we never gathered a moment to stand and stare.
Unlike you we never played with the dew drops,
Unlike you we never cherished possessing a piggy bank or a collection box.
Unlike you we never yearned those hours of
Granny’s fables and fairies,
Unlike you we never contemplated maintaining our personal diaries.
2020 had brought the answer to all your despair!
Oh Dear Grandma!
We indeed received a while to stand and stare.
Some say it was a boon,
Some call it a bane.
Tell me Grandma,
Do you truly think
The year was long and mundane?
The Night of Death
In the foggy night there came deadly sounds from the haunted bungalow on the other side of the street which gave a spine-chilling feel to David who was returning home from his friend’s house.
David Caroline was a 12 year old boy, who loved spooky adventures but today he had shivers of fear. His mom, Mrs. Jennifer Caroline, a stout lady with a crooked nose and a mouth as sour as a gooseberry had a peculiar talent of slapping the hardest in the entire universe. She had instructed David to come straight home after meeting his friend, or else, he would have to experience his mom’s odd talent!. But will he be able to come home at all?
Suddenly, David detected some eerie sounds from the bungalow. On the spur of the moment, he turned to notice a hazy figure in the misty night. In a flash of a second, the figure appeared right next to David.
It was a spine-chilling sight – a blood-curdling phantom with eight blood red eyes and wore a white robe with patches of blood on it. Seeing this, David had a sweat shower! The ghoul took out a string with a marble as black as coal, clipped to the end of it. The ghost moved the string slowly in front of David’s eyes and hypnotised him. The ghost then led David into the strange bungalow. There came creepy voices like a horse carriage riding in the distance, weird sounds like whispering cries, howling of wolves and slithering of snakes. There appeared a chain of headless corpses bound with bones. The cobwebs had spiders in it which were one of the most terrifying of all. Suddenly, there appeared a big shiny sword in the air. It was smeared with blood. “You’re gonna die!”, hollered the phantom. And at that moment David gave out a loud scream!
Mrs. Caroline’s slap was the same as the attack of a sword! “My talent has flourished with flying colours! You had the world-famous slap coming for some time!”, boasted Mrs. Caroline. David’s mouth fell open on hearing this truth and he promised himself not to watch any scary movie before going to sleep.
Lockdown
Lockdown is a scary time,
So I thought I’ll write a rhyme.
I never imagined such a trouble,
And I think that I am trapped in a bubble.
I want to see my friends,
Before the world ends.
In the French videos that sets us challenges,
Hope no one fails and ends up in bandages.
One day when this will come to an end,
Hopefully before driving mum and dad to their wit’s end.
We will look back and cherish the thoughts,
Of the lessons we learnt and the ones we were taught.
When a Baby is Born!
When a baby is born,
A new world is created by a mother,
She never pays attention to anything
Other than loving her son/ her daughter!
Glee in the family,
Is brought by the baby,
Families offer prayers at the steeple,
With love and joy which is shared among the people!
They have such little fingers,
Such tiny toes,
Such spirited eyes and
Such an adorable nose.
A mouth so tiny,
And a smile so sweet,
They’re the cutest creatures
In the whole world indeed!
The Forgotten Map
One day Lia was cleaning up the attic with her mother. She moved a pile of boxes and found a secret compartment. She opened it and found a yellow envelope that had a crumpled piece of paper in it. She thought it was a treasure map but she was not sure. She went to ask her mother but remembered that her father had a lot of old maps. So, she went to ask her father about the treasure map.
Her father said he had seen such blueprints in Lia’s grandfather’s study room. Lia’s dad was curious so he had asked his dad about them, but Lia’s grandfather never told him. When he grew up, Lia’s father was still curious, so he scanned the blueprints and found out that the building had never existed.
Lia researched everything that she could find on the crumpled piece of paper and got to know that the location of the nonexistent building was occupied by the public library. Behind the map there were some faded words, she could make out the words “solve ….. puzzle ……. secret …… treasure”.
Lia thought that she had to solve a puzzle so that she would get to know the secret of the treasure. The next day she went to the library with her dad. There were some places on the map marked ‘C-1, C-2, C-3’. Lia’s dad said that those might be some clues. They went to the place marked C-1 and saw a little statue of some golden painted books, the top book was different from the rest: it had no title, and as the wind blew in from the window the top book opened and inside the book was a bronze key!
They then solved the next two clues and found a silver and a golden key. Now they just had to find where to fit those keys. Just then Lia noticed that on the map at only one place there was a little figure shaped like a key. They went to that place and unlocked the doors quietly, inside the door was another door and yet another one.
When they had unlocked the final door they saw a chest full of gold bars, gold coins, sparkling silver jewellery sets and a big hand painted portrait of a man, a woman and a boy who was not more than 4 years old. The frame of the painting was shimmering and was also made of gold.
Lia and her dad were speechless not because of all the gold and the riches but because the woman in the painting looked just like Lia’s great grandmother. Lia and her father went to talk to the owner of the library and got to know that the owner who was known as Mr. Miller was a very good friend of her great grandmother and he had promised to protect the treasure until one day one of her daughters or sons would find the treasure.
Mr. Miller asked Lia what she would do with all that gold and the painting. Lia had a great plan. Instead of wasting the money in buying things, she would donate some of the money to different charities and give the painting away for display in Mr. Miller’s library. He was very grateful to Lia and told her that she was truly a worthy heir to her grandmother’s treasure.
A Day When Everything Went Wrong!
Once on a day in Mid-May,
Each house was covered in the Sun’s ray,
It seemed to be a day very pleasing,
But problems kept me chasing!
In the morning the bus left me,
I requested my father to drop me,
But a ferocious look he gave me.
Finally, after dropping me to school,
I recognised myself as a big fool!
I forgot to note that there was no school that day,
Which was the worst moment of the day!
While returning home by car,
The Sun was so hot that I took a sweat shower!
While having lunch in the dining hall,
I tripped over my ball and had a great fall,
I just landed on the burning hot food,
Which just ruined my mood!
In the evening when I was out to play,
In the tunnel, I chose the wrong way,
Which forced me to face a new trouble,
But the more I tried to come out of it, my problem grew double!
After reaching home for dinner,
I gave myself the name, ‘TROUBLE WINNER’,
When I was watching TV while eating my meal,
The lights went out and gave me a disheartening feel,
This was the end of this repulsive day,
Which never comes again, I PRAY!
The Lost Box
Once Nora and her friends were on a picnic at a lake. They placed the picnic mat and Ava, Zuri and Lonnie started putting the food on the mat. Nora and Zuri changed into their swimming costumes and went into the lake for a swim.
While they were swimming, Zuri stumbled upon a box which was submerged in the water. Nora took the box out and saw that it had the sign of a castle which she had seen in a history book before.
When they opened the box they found some sketches, a map and a photograph of a queen, a king and a boy. Lonnie said that they might even become famous for finding this box. Ava did some research and she found out that the sign of the castle on the box was the crest of the king of Udaipur. The king had a wonderful palace right beside the lake. He often used to go to the lake for fishing.
Nora and her friends gave the box to the Udaipur museum. The box was placed in the famous king’s exhibition of the museum. And guess what, they got their names written on a plaque just below the exhibit!
“This was found by Nora, Ava, Lonnie and Zuri, tourists at Fateh Sagar Lake.”
