Corona's Blow (Eulogy)

Corona’s Blow

No more

Now there is no sun

In our ‘Inaganti’ family

Always with smiley vivacious face

With grey hair

With pencil mustache

Used to look like Gulzar

In white kurta and pajamas

We’d talk boisterously

With passionate arguments

With jokes

At times he used to tease me

And, we’d forget it all

Still

Memories move in eyes

Like movie stills

In Srisailam

We dined in the Karivena Choultry

Before and after our marriage

Often he would see us off at

Nagpur train station

Only our “bhaiya” could materialize

A vacant seat or a berth on the spot (for us)

How many topics

Did we discuss?

From cacti to politics, science, medicine,

And Literature

Where would we find

Such a unique individual

These days

Who knows four languages thoroughly?

With whom can we talk about

P. S. Sastri from Nagpur?

Who understands such

Esoteric subjects

Hardly there are

Ten people in the entire world

Now

Wherever you are

Let your atma wander freely

Peacefully among verdant gardens

Filled with flowers and mango fruits

Among the bowers echoing the calls

Of koel and pigeons

Among green farms and cradling river waves

With friends in the swings of joy

Then, later

Let it realize “I am the Brahman”

State

So be it!

(Inaganti = ఇన + కంటి = The One who has Sun as one of the eyes. Siva has Sun, Moon, and Fire as the three eyes) 

(Translated from a Telugu verse, inspired by a close relative's struggles with Covid. Both poems Copyright 2020 by the author)