Mere Geet

by
Sahir Ludhianvi

History of IBA Literary Society (2007-2008)

The Road Not Taken

by
Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Frost (1874 - 1963) was an American poet mostly known for his simple-worded short poems full of imagery.

 

A complete collection of his poems can be found here.

Comedy in War

Excerpt from Spike Milligan's Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall

September 3rd, 1939. The last minutes of peace ticking away. Father and I were watching Mother digging our air-raid shelter. “She’s a great little woman,” said Father. “And getting smaller all the time,” I added. Two minutes later, a man called Chamberlain who did Prime Minister impressions spoke on the wireless; he said, “As from eleven o’clock we are at war with Germany.” (I loved the WE.) “War?” said Mother. “It must have been something we said,” said Father. The people next door panicked, burnt their post office books and took in the washing: 

Almost immediately came the mournful wail of the first Air Raid Warning. “Is that you dear?” said Mother. “It’s a Jewish Funeral,” said Father, “Quick! Put out the begging bowls.” It was in fact the Bata Shoe Factory lunch hooter. It caused chaos until it was changed. Uncle Willie, a pre-death mortician, who hadn’t worked for years, started making small wooden mushrooms. He sent them to Air-Marshal Harris requesting they were dropped on Germany to prove that despite five days of war, British craftsmanship still flourished. They were returned with a note saying, “Dropping wooden mushrooms during raids might cause unnecessary injury.” My brother Desmond too, seized with pre-pubic patriotism, drew pictures of fantastic war machines. He showed Father: “Son,” he said, “these inventions will be the salvation of England.” They wasted no time: carrying the portfolio of drawings in a string bag, they hurried to Whitehall by 74 tram. After several arguments and a scuffle, they were shown into the presence of a curious nose manipulating Colonel. He watched puzzled as Father laid out drawings of Troop-Carrying Submarines, Tank-Carrying Zeppelins and some of Troops on Rocket-Propelled Skates, all drawn on the backs of old dinner menus. “Right,” said the Colonel, “I’ll have the brown windsor, roast beef and two veg.” Father and son were then shown the door, the windows, and finally the street. My father objected. “You fool! By rejecting these inventions you’ve put two years on the war.” 

“Good,” said the Colonel, “I wasn’t doing anything!” Father left. With head held high and feet held higher, he was thrown out. 

He took the war very seriously; as time went on so did Neville Chamberlain, he took it so seriously he resigned. “Good! He’s stepping down for a better man,” concluded Father, and wrote off for the job. One Saturday morning, while Mother was at church doing a bulk confession for the family, Father donned an old army uniform and proceeded to transform the parlour into H.Q. Combined Ops. Walls were covered in tatty maps. On the table was a 1927 map of Thomas Tilling’s bus route. Using wooden mushrooms as anti-tank guns, Uncle Willie placed them at various points on the map for the defence of Brockley. My father told the early morning milkman, “That,” he said tapping the map, “that is where they’ll start their attack on England.” 

“That’s Africa,” said the puzzled Milkman.

            

“Ah yes!” said Father, quick to recover, “But that’s where they’ll start from—Africa—understand?”

            

“No I don’t,” said the Milkman. Whereupon he was immediately nipped in the scrotum, thrown out, and his horse whipped into a gallop. “Only two pints tomorrow,” Father shouted after the disappearing cart.

           

Next morning a Constable arrived at the door.

            

“AH, good morning Constable,” said Father raising his steel helmet. “You’re just in time.”

           

“In time for what sir?”

            

“In time for me to open the door for you,” said Father, reeling helplessly with laughter.

           

“Very funny sir,” said the Constable.

            

“Knew you’d like it,” said Father, wiping tears from his eyes. “Now what can we do for you, a robbery’? a murder? I mean times must be bad for the force, why not slap a writ on Hitler?”

             

“It’s about these barricades you put across the road.”

            

“Oh? What’s wrong with them? We’re at war you know.”

           

“It’s not me sir, it’s the tram drivers. They’re shagged out having to lift them to get through, they’ve got to come down.”

            

“You’re all fools!” said Father, “I’ll write to Churchill.” He did. Churchill told him to take them down as well.

            

“He’s a bloody fool too,” said Father. “If he’s not careful I’ll change sides.”

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty

by
Ogden Nash

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971) was an American poet known for his humorous poems. Though the one reproduced here is deeper than his usual work, Nash is known best for rib-tickling light comedy on topics ranging from sport to society. If you want to try Nash's sense of humour, try reading his other poems, here.

 

Ghazal (Taaza Ho Dimaagh Apna...)

by

Haider Ali Aatash

Father Forgets

by
W. Livingston Larned 

(as reproduced in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People)

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

These are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bed-side in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy - a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.”