Their feelings, too!

Here is the loose translation of a Marathi poem I wrote a couple of years ago (You can find the original poem on my Marathi blog, here). It is based on the concept of irony, and me having to tell you this explicitly, is an ode to irony itself!

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He was a little boy

Innocent, and care-free

I always want to be like this,

Dreamily thought he.

But alas, his teachers said

You must learn the world’s ways…

Can’t even educate their own children,

About your parents, the world says!

—                   —                  —

It was a piece of rich brown land

Just-plowed, soft, and moist

It wanted to stay that way,

And play with the blowing breeze, it voiced.

But the farmer said,

If I didn’t want to sow,

Why would I ever

Take all the trouble to plow?

—                   —                  —

It was a sheet of plain paper,

Very crisp  and very white

It didn’t want to be written on,

Lest get dirty it might!

Oh, but the writer had other plans

I paid money for it, he thundered!

Why would I do that, if I didn’t want to use it?

Wouldn’t it be a waste, he wondered!

—                   —                  —

The little boy did not imagine then,

That he would grow up to be very successful and rich, indeed…

The piece of land, too, didn’t fathom,

That on its crops would so many people feed…

And nor did the paper know that the words written on it,

would help thousands of people in their lives, to succeed…

Had they known, it would have been so much better!

They would have endured the present happily,

And would have been delighted, later!

—                   —                  —

The teachers, the farmer, and the poet were elated,

In the glory of their achievements they basked…

But how were they to know, that while improving the future,

The pleasantness of the present they masked?

Had they known, though, would it have been better?

Would they have been a little sad,

Then, or later?