As I Hang my Boots Today

I have long been a foot soldier.

My feet have taken me places

where I left my footprints

though  not on the pages of history.

Because foot soldiers do not merit

even a foot note in history books.

                                          

I left my footprints on the sands

of hot deserts and beaches,

and on the rain soaked soft ground.

But those stayed just till the soldier

behind me stepped on them

or heavy rains washed

or winds blew them away

 

I hang my boots today to go home

butI do not want to talk about the

battles I fought and won

nor those I lost and where I was

left wounded.

Nor shall I remember running

through the maze of incessantly

firing weapons around me

that I thought, was of the kind that 

Abhimanyu did not come out of

but I did.

 

Because I have seen far bigger

and more fierce battles fought

on the streets of cities every day,

battles that must be won.

My battles were too small and

no more than a child’s play

when many children resiliently

fought daily battles of adults.

 

At just twelve years –

the eldest of the orphans, 

their home under the fly-over,

hawks at traffic light so that

he could buy food for his siblings.

He hopes to send his brother

and sisters to school one day.

 

The frail ‘Kaamwali’ barely out of

childhood turns up for her

daily drudgery, at times with eyes

blood shot with fever.

she cannot afford to lose her job.

She must send her son

to an ‘Angreji’ school.

 

The boy on the crutch

who lost his limbs in an accident

pours over the alphabets

on the cold floor of January morning

at the Municipality school.

He must make himself worthy

of a government job.

 

Their battles too, do not make it

to the pages of history.

But I shall always think of them.

These are battles of hope and grit.

I will live my life happily being on their ringside.

 

(Note: I scribbled these lines on the day I retired in 2014)