Poem : Eka's gift

Dear reader, 


Have been reading a lot about the Nishada prince Ekalavya lately. And it occurred to me how similar, in some ways, his life is with Krsna's. Both had extremely humble beginnings and yet, with time, went on to become important names in our ancient epics. Both went on to work with important people of the times and are marked in our legends for their several heroics. If Ekalavya, despite his thumb being taken by Drona Acharya by trickery, went on to be King Jarasandha's confidant and an important member of his team, then Krsna, the son of a cowherd went on to become the king of Dwarka. Perhaps it is poetically apt that Ekalavya finally meets his end at the hands of Krsna. This short poem is, hence, a tribute to that warrior who had the gift of giving. An attribute which earns him a higher pedestal as a warrior than the rest.




 ~ Eka's gift ~


Droplets of bliss, hued deep red,
Fell like helpless comets, earth bound,
Sketching tiny dust craters, they hastily sped,
To their invisible destiny. On visible ground.
His chapped lips bore not a hint,
Not an inkling of the waters of disdain,
Eyes, steady, bejeweled with gems distinct,
Knew no resident from the lands of pain.
A jaggedly sawed stub, fresh and oozing,
Sent snaking streams in joint celebration,
He, head bowed for the official offering,
Regaled in company of such magnification.
Like the ancient king Satyavrata, or Manu,
Who once held a tiny fish, it had been said,
Eka's palms, washed clean with bliss anew,
Cradled lines of fate, etched in blood instead.
The aged ascetic looked on, unperturbed,
Anxious faces around him watched, amazed,
Their princely feet moved not, stayed undisturbed,
As audience to Eka – the intruder, the unfazed.
The master's hands, with much unbridled pride,
Plucked and picked up the gift of the hour,
Muttering words incoherent from every side,
Placed in Eka's red palms, a golden flower.
In the lad, the master had seen divinity,
In his humility lay the true gift he would bring,
After the conch had been blown on all humanity,
His name would stand for giving. And forgiving.
Eka vanished into the woods, head bowed,
A trail of little red tears clinging to him,
Drawing the dotted line, that would never erode,
From rust of time, in winds placid or grim.
Oily clouds shifted hazily in heavens above,
Connecting disconnecting residue of emotions,
Guiding Eka forever on the path of love,
Taking him to guide clans, build nations.
Moons later, in a grand battle far far away,
A king from Dwarka spotted Eka's smiling face,
Not a tussle of a divine and a mortal, that day,
One great leader, had celebrated another, with grace.






OTHER RECOMMENDED READS
Poem : Dvarka
Poem : Eldest Kaunteya

Still no country for Ekalavya

A picture, it is said, is usually worth a thousand words. I sometimes feel if that were literally true how much time and effort would have been saved for mankind by just displaying pictures to one another all the time instead of writing multiple paragraph emails explaining something. I recently read an article on Twitter that discussed the possibility of limiting any email to up to 3 sentences to avoid email overload. Not a bad idea, I felt. Except if the writer decides to get creative with where the full stop would go. Give Salman Rushdie this challenge and he might write an entire short story with just those 3 sentences! No wonder that verbose gentleman is not on Twitter.

But I digress. So the reason I mentioned pictures was because of the photo you see attached with this blog post. Yes, it is my thumb and yes, it is hurt. The cause for this injury, given the popularity of the spot, is a culinary incident involving a tricky knife. Whys and hows of the accident are quite irrelevant here. No sooner had a band-aid been placed to remedy the cut than it struck me of how invaluable the thumb was, is and shall remain. The only difference being, back in the days of royalty it was used to demonstrate mastery at shooting arrows while now we use it to, well, do pretty much everything from punch in the keys on our mobiles, game controllers and iPods to spacebars, gameboys and remote controls. Yes, the king of the human finger collection (with the middle finger being an interesting exception) seems to be the thumb.

The accident also reminded me of that popular tale from the Mahabharata where a lowly tribesman named Ekalavya gets so good at archery that he almost defeats the pampered poster boy of the Pandavas – Arjuna. Sly maharishi Drona then, having seen how invaluable the thumb would be for a million more generations, decides to ask Ekalavya to sacrifice just that as part of his guru dakshina – the thumb. This, of course, is a tale from another world but it made me wonder if something similar could take place in today's day and age. A dedicated student might definitely end up submitting his beloved mobile or mp3 player to honor his teacher but would never follow Ekalavya's example and slice off what appears to be the real trigger to all comfort in the world – the thumb (or any other finger for that matter).

This cross referencing of a thumb's critical role from the days of the Hindu epic till this day seemed like an interesting thing to explore. Now that I have done that, my next attempt would be to actually try and attempt the 3 sentence formula for an email the aforementioned article was recommending. Would be tricky at first, I am sure. But hey, I bet everyone were equally alarmed when Twitter said it was only going to allow 140 characters for a message! That is going pretty well so why shouldn't this catch on as well, isn't it? A definite thumbs up from me!

Ouch.