Father and Son
NS Rajan
SON:
Twenty one am I, educated, but not rich
Am soon on my own, dear Father, teach and enrich
FATHER:
Most of life’s wisdom consists of being wise in time
Bestow your energy and youth earning a dime
If you don’t have any by the time you are forty
Life’s twists and turns will play with you very dirty
Earn it – if you don’t, you’d rarely get a wink
If you have it still you can neither sleep nor think
World bends to you, sonny, and makes it all very sunny
Do have more than a penny, spares you of poor’s agony
Money you will learn either serves or governs
Inflicts all races, sepoys, kings and concerns
Never know the worth of it till the well’s dry
Late by far, then, to rise from one’s misery
No honey for a bee that flies not to the flowers
Industrious be, enrich your hive; sumptuary delivers
Indigence, the way out rarely simple, as way in
Insolvency vexes spirit, despair’s quick sand akin
Sterlings can never pay off all your debts
Real wants are few, imagined vast , life begets
Farthing forever on scaffold, sovereign on throne
If you owe someone, debtor shall atone
Make money by all means, but only as means
Not just as end in itself lest it surely demeans
Single minded devotion to earn your sustenance
A focus let it be, one mission- a sure penance
Live a good life, toil, earn, share all you can, be
Protect you family, parents, wife and children to be
Moderation will stand by through joys and sorrows
Success shall bless, don’t give up hope for the morrow
SON:
Forty am I, today – confirmed not to your wisdom;
Living in penury, Father – poor till kingdom come?
(Luck_MET Museum: This photo was captured when I visited the MET Museum, a treasure trove of art in the heart of the city of New York. Even as you enter the museum, the courtyard had this pond in which I could see a number of coins beneath the water. Like most of us tend to drop a coin into water hoping luck would embrace us, visitors like me have tried their luck! At a particular angle, the shimmering water with the melding reflection of the blue skies overhead and a building nearby created moving works of art, in their own right. The picture is uniquely one of its own, perhaps, as water takes on a million forms.)
Navneet
🙂 loved it