Essentials of Living: Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia

Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia

A Survival Guide in the Pandemic-Stalked Times

ENISLED

A solitary solipsistic existence is mine

And yet strange are the ways of Fate

What I had adopted as the Will Divine

For myself, became a common state

Suddenly people were thrown in on themselves

As I have been for many long years

Just I, my desk, and my bookshelves

While people advanced in different spheres

When COVID 19 hit Planet Earth

Isolation became a challenge for most

And yet think of it: your home and hearth

Have always been there your presence to host

People starved for touch, for direct talk,

But how many really stopped to think

Of those who long ago took the knock

And were left alone to swim or sink ?

I came to the conclusion Arnold was right

When he said Man is in Life enisled

And mortal millions are out of sight

Of each other, Life a Sea, he styled

While I would not undermine in any way

The need for friends and family

I think we often give too much sway

To Man’s need for company

While we need Society and Community

My point is we need not be so afraid

Of being alone- it’s opportunity

To find the real substance of which we are made

We have endless resources within our own selves

And the internet of course gives us many more

But never underestimate your bookshelves

And stories of which you yourself are the store

The Time of Pandemic is Time to Adapt

A Time to tap each inner resource

And build it up so that it is apt

Even when COVID has run its course

Physical and Mental and Spiritual Strength

Are present in all to some degree

Now we should study ourselves at length

And grow even stronger, consciously

In brief, do not give in to loneliness

But enjoy the blessings of solitude

So whether or not circumstances press

Each one of us has the right attitude

COVID is a challenge: we have survived worse:

We should use it to build capabilities

Let’s turn into blessing this pandemic curse

And refine our sensibilities

For instance, learn compassion for those alone

Not out of choice but compulsion

Let each one of us care for each other one

Not give way to hatred or revulsion

And also find within ourselves that core

That makes us creative and fills us with joy

Let us learn how to turn less into more

And usefully every resource employ

Let us reflect more, sing more, write more,

Paint more, help more, be more kind

With others fight less, with our demons fight more,

Let us meditate more, strengthen soul and mind.

If we do this, a better human race we’ll emerge

From the pandemic, when it is over and gone

Let compassion and creativity surge

Then truly this battle we shall have won.

***

POETRY IS THE BEST MEDICINE

I had COVID, and Poetry helped me survive

Reading and writing and challenging myself

As soon as I was falling, I’d revive

Poetry helped me more than power and pelf.

This isn’t a story, it’s a statement of fact:

In April last, I was down with COVID

And yet, to lessen its impact,

Take rest and write poetry was all I did

Of course, I took tests and medicines too,

And acted upon my doctor’s advice,

But my faith in my own positivity grew

As Poetry descended in Angel’s disguise

Through fever and headaches I battled on

Wrote one two or three or four poems a day

And read many more, then settled on

What I would write the following day

Through my illness and my convalescence

Of thirty days, poems one twenty

I wrote, and I’m convinced in essence

This saved me, with God’s Grace in plenty.

***

FAITH, HOPE, LOVE AND ART

Essentials for Survival haven’t changed much

Just become more important in these hard times

We need to acknowledge their value as such

We need social capital: nickels and dimes

Will not take us far: we need humanity

And we need art for the soul, our music and rhymes

At all times, but most now, it’s positivity

That keeps people going, and kindness, and smiles

We need to preserve our sensitivity

Remember, in hard times, unkindness most riles

But a helping hand people will not forget

This is no time to try cleverness and guiles

We need patience and perseverance the most

We need for ourselves and for others, Hope

Let no heart to despair play the host

With Faith, Hope and Love, together we’ll cope,

And beyond Survival, carve out fresh scope.

***  

Bio: Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia is one of the various pen names used by Punjab-born, Patna-based retired Indian bureaucrat Amita Paul, for her original writings in different genres, in English, Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi, featured in various anthologies, journals, and online poetry writing forums. She was awarded the NISSIM International Poetry Award for 2019 for her contribution to English Poetry, and the Reuel International Prize for 2020 for Non-Fiction for her Experimental Prose plus Multi-Media Anthology, ‘The Saaqi Chronicles’. Destiny Poets, Wakefield, UK declared her Poet of the Year 2020, and also Critic of the Year 2020, an unprecedented coincidence. Her more recent work can be seen in ‘Impressions and Expressions’, a 2021 anthology of international poetry edited by Oman-based poet, Amita J.Singhvi, on Spillwords, in GloMag August 2021 and in the Yugen Quest Review, April and August 2021.

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Setu, January 2021