Nissim Ezekiel Memorial

Nissim Ezekiel Memorial, 
Dec 16, 2016,
Department of English
University of Bombay (Kalina campus)

On the poet's 92nd birth anniversary

Three paths stood apart
Forked, a little crooked in
The day's gleaming light
Impoverished by memory
Where it hurt the most;

The book too was there
A fourth route opening up
In reluctant turn of the pages
Very slow and dragging it's feet
In some places, loathe to turn.

What must he be thinking now
In bits and pieces strewn all over,
And ineffectual as a light put out
In the darkness?

Does he remember 'The Night of
The Scorpion' his dramatic ode
To his mother, many had 'by-hearted'
In school? Or has he erased
All earthly memories in favour
Of a safe & soft oblivion?

Men will be men and they said
He was nice to her because she
Was a woman! The cyclical rot
Of this decadent thought took
No notice, of course, of her poetic
Prowess. So much for feminism,
Equality and other such...
Ah yes, men will be men!

The Father of Modernism
Who gave voice to a whole new
Generation of poets, handing
Them their own tools, their idioms
Their symbols, got in return stifling
Sobriquets 'court jester'
And wounds that fester,
But his poems and thoughts
Live on
Turning impermanence
Into a vague unlit shadow...

(Ezekiel's biography by Prof. Rao was launched the same day)