Friday 29 March 2013

Abhimanyu was a teenager



Chakravyuh or disc formation of warriors :Google images




What we did to that kid  -  Abhimanyu -
has it changed at all?  in two and a half
millennia, a killer joke, heartless laughs,
a foetus remote-taught to break into
complex war formations, the chakravyuh
but without an exit. Choreographed
murder of innocents, children bluffed
drawn into war, and worse.  Takes quite a few
thousand years to wipe that clean, and don’t come
mouthing that love can fumigate all sins.
Strain and you can still smell that old bloodstain
and the stink of fresher ones through the balm
two thousand years and more to make some sense
of it, and still it doesn’t, not one grain.
Abhimanyu is a character from the Hindu epic Mahabharat, who listens in on his father explaining the disc formation used in war from his mother's womb and is sent later to battle with such a formation when he's just sixteen. He fights bravely but is killed because he heard only the  entry and not exit.
Missed linking up on last week's prompt on sonnets at dVerse, so here it is for the OLN

10 comments:

  1. You are too good Nilanjana :)

    Just read a few of your poems and I have become your Fan already
    A lot to learn from you... :)

    Keep Inspiring.

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  2. Fantastic Post

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  3. Thank you both, Ashish and Avirandom...

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  4. oh heck...how can we ever find the exit...have never heard about that book before but kids in war just break my heart..

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  5. omg what a story eh...and how tragic only hearing the beginning...what a gritty verse as well..s.train and you'll still smell the bloodstain....tight little verse...

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  6. A lovely sonnet dear ~ What a story from your country, smelling that old bloodstain ~ The young child's death is heart breaking ~

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  7. That Hindus , like Jews and their bad-step child (Christians) still value these iron age tales of horror is fascinating. Great stories in there, but with it, the nastiness of war.

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  8. Some things one never can make sense of...so sad about the young man dying because he didn't know how to exit. And the smell of the bloodstain - intense!

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