From the Archive: Sunday, 8 April 2012

Somewhere Beyond the Himalayas

(1)

It was on a silent deafening night

No beams and celestial light

From the sullen sky came down

Dark was night and dismal the town

For mists and fogs as if fountains

Painted the mighty snow mountains

Sky was blind yet bright my eyes

As I have had to bid

Adieu all my beloved who did

Sink in pain and grief

Yet strong was their belief

In hope and in dream

As the flow of a stream

The tales of torment I can

Tell you as a fatigued man

For the facile fear of my gray mother

And final kiss of my gallant father

For a moment I felt unwind

When every sight was totally blind

Soothing heart in a weakened soul

And exalting hope to a higher goal

They set me on track shown

To search the destination unknown

But “somewhere beyond the Himalayas”

They said, a kingdom of freedom

(2)

Crossing the borders of my native anklets

On a path paved by chains and bullets

With a tune more sublime

I heard the song for last time

Its “somewhere beyond Himalayas”

A home for the homeless

And a hope for the hopeless

Twisting and turning amidst rude storm

And chasing a dream in many a form

The only and final hope held high

I fled through mountains in dark sky

Knocking on Himalayas hellish door

Of the mighty mountains’ icy floor

I asked to a fellow wayfarer

If there is any warm shelter

For my fingers froze in terrible cold

That finally failed to uphold

My naive figure on native soil

After such a long toil

Holding hard to a snow fringed sill

My thought had gone dead and still

When churning avalanche the white snake

Did again broke my last brake

Hope for a moment seemed almost gone

When our cries and calls heard by none

(3)

Roaring mountains cracking beneath path

A song with the theme bitter wrath

Though truth turned blind to your fall

And justice gone deaf to your call

Your brothers went on such a way

While thousands lost in journey astray

I heard the song “a grip of reality”

For death is after all a silent brutality

When a maze of hurdles in dread

Pushed me on a circuit of thread

Thought and feeling sank beneath tears

While a danger lurked upon my fears

Yet the fears only not all of fetter

When dreams conjured what matter

Truth taught me to combat if I can

If not so, I would have gone as a man

If the road to home lost, then I

Won’t mourn as the death comes by

(4)

Thank God, the fate stumbled at last

Upon a right path from beaten blast

I reached a place where peace prevails

And saved me to tell the tragic tales

Yet my journey not after all the last

I am more or less a desert vast

Crushed and scattered but unscathed by

The winds and waves below blue sky

Waiting for a day in wearisome time

Over a decade struggling for no crime

To sing of home for once more

And breathe my last air at native shore

Now ask me not from where I’m

For I am like a deserted ram

Fleeing from the arrow of hunters

And telling my stories in whispers

I have no home to call my own

I am a beggar on the land unknown

If you ask so, I’ll say, I am

From somewhere beyond Himalayas

 Majestic and high above all

Standing still next to ranges tall

Winter thrones a snow white queen     

While spring comes with a veil green

The tears fall in jet crystal fountains

Over the valleys and ever white mountains 

An invisible kingdom yet so clear

When the sun is high it does appear                      

A gigantic claw clutching innocent snows 

While the tears are shed as a river flows

Counting each bead of rosary for the victory

To be free as the wind, a sceneless reverie