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Best Poems From
RATNAKAR ROUT
(28th August 1961)
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1.
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CAMOUFLAGE
For last couple of days
I have an impetus to ponder over
Peculiar obsession.
Any one questions me or not
I intend to express my intention.
What is that?
I am allowed to be alone
Where there is silence all around.
I would plunge into deep penance
And listen to the whispers
Of the loneliness and the voice of silence.
I shall realize the echo of
My heart and what is in me
In my conscious, sub-conscious
And unconscious self
And to read me
Who am I?
And am endowed with what
To unfurl the petals after petals
Of my heart
I would prefer dark to light
I know light camouflages one
With gala and etiquette
To manifest the hypocritical
Civilization and its mundane ideology
Darkness eats away all artifice
It encourages and impels one
To relax the swinging tentacles
Like an emancipated reptile
When he reads himself bit by bit in silence?
Ratnakar Rout
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2.
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A DEAD MAN WALKING
I suspect whether I am alive or dead
At times, I feel, I am dead, at times alive
I live alike the three monkeys of Mahatma
Since long, I have closed my eyes
I have willfully made myself deaf and dumb too
At present, I dont see, I dont listen and I dont speak
But I live and move as usual but dont react
To the incidents happening around me
I watch, even immovable plants react to the external stimuli
But I dont since; I have lost my will to react,
To show interest in things
And differentiate between good or bad
As I am almost compelled to look after my own affairs only
By no one in particular but the prevailing social condition
Wherein I live presently has made me confined
Like a tortoise, I am very calculative in my own movement
I crawl when I find a pasture land
And withdraw me at once when I encounter danger
On the face of an obstacle which puts hindrance ahead
I hide me in my own shell and snore calmly
As long as the impediments appear insurmountable
I am not bothered if my fellow citizens are in deep trouble
Over the years, I have withdrawn myself to my own domain
Every one should know that I am a lonesome, isolated
Detached and highly self-centered modern man Living
With you all in this first decade of the twenty first century
When everything mundane is available
At my door step to cater to my avid needs
Still, I am shivering in fear,
Shedding my tear now and then in seclusion
I have many unfulfilled desire to run after
In spite of that I have absolutely have no reaction
In any matter what so ever the situation becomes
Hue and cry, outside of me in the world,
Has almost restrained me in a self designed shield
Wherein, though I am visible alive clinically
But I am almost dead mentally, you can find me
Only my mortal body moves
From one end of the armor to the other
But it behaves mechanically as a robot
Being completely empty and vacuum
In absence of any consciousness
And in lacking the power of consideration
Now I live in it and move
Like a dead man walking in an abandoned castle.
Ratnakar Rout
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3.
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LOVE FOR LANGUAGE
Sound denotes the tune
Tune shapes the word
Words sprout of strong feelings
Feelings have no limit, no boundary
But it is clothed by the language
Language endows with the identity
Identity confers recognition
Recognition offers self esteem
To the human beings in the society
Thus everyone has to devote time
and give all out efforts for protection
restoration and growth of one's own language.
Ratnakar Rout
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4.
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Believe me
Believe me, now-a-days
I am amongst much confusion
Which I had not ever had in my life
Still I prefer to maintain utter silence
I look calm like surface of the mid sea
As appears everything is in order
But, enormous current flows within
May be a strange volcano gathers its
Momentum underneath surreptitiously
At anytime from now it may blow up
Believe me, at times I listen from inside
Let the ground make ready now onwards
To bear its startling violent spells
Let every one be aware to face the catastrophe
That may at any time fall upon us
Believe me, things are not going well
As we all see and accept on its face value
Some wrong somewhere hinders the move
When delivers it behaves like house of cards
The fruits do not reach at the right place
The beneficiaries suffer and their waiting
Continue for ages for a better tomorrow
But a few, who matters despite such stark realities
Claims a full proof system is still right in its place
Which carters to the needs of one and all
Believe me, things are changing very fast
You wish or not anytime from now anything may happen
A skeleton in your cupboard may raise a slogan
A dead man may spring up from his grave
With a loaded gun and may make the grave yard
A place of dissidents activities
They may too together convert it
To the burial ground of the reactionaries
How long voices can be ignored unheard
How long wishes of a few would prevail on
Situation is ought to change today or day after
Believe me, the honey bees here and there
Toil to build the honey comb unperturbed
Butterflies apathetic to the happenings around
Caress the flowers keenly
Breeze blows and seed sprouts
As usual like the eternal go of the world
And the winter sun hugs me lovingly as earlier
I see a ray of the morning sun brightens
The balcony of my apartment
The sight amuses me to my hearts content
I am thus hopeful. Believe me.
Ratnakar Rout
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