Relatives ‘R Us
Our eyes bright as daylight, in the awe of new brothers,
Fathers and aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers,
Their forms, features, functions, and their frequency,
In life's beginning rhythms, and in the world's sequency,
Of different sensations, power, love, good humour,
The cursory sufferance, or the uneasy rumour.
It happened for me too, innocent novitiate,
I loved them all at the start, i honestly state.
Whatever came later was a product of time,
Many years of watching amidst the playful mime.
When finally i spoke to claim my separate life,
Sometimes calm and loving, often in throes of strife,
I found i’d become myself a well-differentiated man,
An uncle or in-law or father for yet others to scan.
I protest at the injustice, both to me and to them
I mean those who once stood at Life's momentary helm.
They were Innocents like me consigned by Fate
To be pampered or roughened, emerge great or ingrate.
As the circle turns full, as the evening grows dark
I offer to myself from my childhood a spark
Of wisdom, that they, the sainted elders & i
Were products both of the same illusory lie:
That people are different, their personalities are
Their defining features, and a trusty lodestar.
But the child sees the world as singularly one
Expects Love & Fun from all, and from none
On that account predicts any Difference there.
Now we must as the 'older children' dare
To mark in the Defined how we dreary tend
To Circuitous lives in which we weary wend
Our ways to obituaries, wordy or by word of mouth,
Who the Duplicitous Sage, and who the Noble Lout!
The feted, damned, revered, reviled and shunned.
They, the once Elder, we now Elder, equally gunned.
Alas, the prism of lifetimes causes children to bend,
But there’s only Love at the Start and now at the End.
I extend to all of humanity my benefit of doubt
Those whom i knew rather well, and those far out,
No, you were not what you were supposed to be
And i am not what others have happened to see.
In a happy unknown way, we're all quite the same,
In our ends and beginnings lie the keys of the game.
Sanjib Basu 