The times of present no longer stay put in their unbolted cages:

Where are those glittering days of mine?

Freedom of childhood is amended to dumbness of sages,

In that joyous splendour even the sun doesn’t shine.

Yesterday I smiled at every petty kit I vision’d,

Today, I’m a joker and the world derides me.

County to province, my pals are fission’d,

My verve can be depicted as a damn’d elegy.

In number I have grown manifold

Though my doctrines have to someone been sold

I always get thumped, still can’t be bold

Such annihilation is awaiting; who’ll keep hold?

Nobody’s to pull me out of this nightmarish well.

That glaze of content on my visage is fast withereth.

I watch cultured domains approaching hell,

But I’m inactive as though encaptur’d by death.

I reminisce how to Almighty I’d expressed gratitude...

Now, from Him I only want ‘n want- never thank.

It requires only a trifle to disclose my attitude;

When I’m lowliest character’d, I possess the highest rank.

I really fear with my fellow to muse,

My triumph and his atoms will defuse.

Rice, I sow, but the ‘Jagirdar’ chews;

I’m still destitute, but he’s in news.

I drink ‘n smoke ‘n sniff, knowing what’ll happen,

The very snag to rise- I let.

I dirty your hall as you’ll wipen.

Neither give nor forgive, easily get and forget.

My chronicle’s kindred to a relinquished page-

Vagrants can bump into, dictating my fate...

Not doing, not thinking- only saying I engage.

This frame that’ll be corpse, is also not my estate.

For my domicile, the world cannot evacuate space,

To survive, I scamper here ‘n there- what a race!!

I’m feeble, obsequious- my own ones can’t I trace…

To all engulfing me, am I a disgrace?

My conviction’s shaken- yeah, pebble’s thrown...

I ne’er learned to swim, but dived into the sea.

I leave all at bay, if bullion’s shown,

Reveries of banquets- can’t afford tea.

Gathering the incoming breath, I lose the outgoing one.

My ankles cross the realm of every shawl.

Living in a souk of conceit - suaveness, bought by none-

To a kaput relation, I dare try and overhaul.

Indolence keeps me from conking the impediment that near my feet stays

Chameleon-like I alter patterns with every fresh phase.

I caper into but not out of habit’s impregnable maze.

I reside with sinister darkness; who bestows upon me- rays?

I’m a match-stick, waiting to set any hayrick ablaze-

Defying that, when all’re burning, I stand, watch, stare...

On every unearthly creation, my finger I raise: -

But, when you vituperate me, I declare it unfair.

Truly, ‘today’ is dwelling in dungeons,

Lost are those glittering days of mine.

To win wars, I send peace loving pigeons,

In that joyous splendour even the sun doesn’t shine.

Though I meet all, lonely I dine;

In that joyous splendour even the sun doesn’t shine.

Life seems to me tackier than quinine,

Forever gone are those glittering days of mine...