“If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all” – this is how the celebrated poet, John Keats put it. Poetry is actually a spontaneous overflow of emotions, as Wordsworth said. I myself experienced it yet another time. I wrote a poem at a time when I wondered if my mind could ever be diverted towards writing a poem, and this time was when I was studying for my exam the next day. The day was when the festival of Lohri was being celebrated on January 12 and I could hear the beats of the drum. And it took me just a minute to jot it down. This is what I wrote:
I am pitying myself at this time!
I hear voices of celebration around me,
but I cannot rejoice
‘Coz I am condemned to testing myself!!!
O! that I were free -
free from the ties that bind.
The bird is free, so is the child
Why not I?
Nobody answers…
It is I who was the chooser;
and now the difference it makes to me:
Being engulfed by the binding vine!