This poem pub­lished for the first time in The World Sikh News dwells on the chal­lenges of be­ing sin­gle and ded­i­cated.  Re­fer­ring to Guru Nanak’s com­pan­ion Bhai Mar­dana and his Rabab, the au­thor talks of be­ing stead­fast in the face of chal­lenges, dif­fi­cul­ties and “be­ing not sure”. Re­live the past and re­cast your fu­ture!

Out­num­bered

Al­lud­ing to the trou­ble­some past
Re­fer­ring to his­to­ry’s canons vast,
Wor­ried about a fu­ture col­lec­tive,
At­tempts are made to arouse fears.
Ap­peals are fed to raw emo­tions
Bring­ing folks to the brink of tears.

A pall of guilt fu­els the mo­men­t’s heat.
Logic and sense take a back­seat.
Worth of be­ing is be­lit­tled to nought,
The ground be­neath feet feels shaken.
One ques­tions one’s own right­eous­ness
for each and every step hith­erto taken.

A take on the ‘next world’, some claims tall
‘We are out­num­bered’, is the root call.
The ways are sought to add to the count.
The call is cer­tainly to con­vert the blind
from par­tial, full, or colour-blind­ness
Of one sort or other to an­other dif­fer­ent kind.

Wake up, be­gin to­day, it’s still not too late.
Scale all heights, write your own fate.
Now re­call a com­pan­ion car­ry­ing a rabab
through­out the walks and for small chat­ter.
Was there any­one else ac­com­pa­ny­ing him?
The num­ber did not, and does not mat­ter.