Three Poems by Gazala Khan

Gazala Khan

(1) Land

I stepped it, the land, perch by perch,

I breathed the petrichor;

My heart danced with the movement of unbraided blades of the grass,

The land transpires in the form of millions of cells that I call my body.

I offered my 'salaam'* to my deceased grandparents,

My childhood flashed in the form of sundry memories.

Giggling is no longer heard on the archaic veranda,

My mother's Arabic calligraphy is still ingrained on the walls of our ancestral home.

My father's heart resides in the land and its people.

I penned memories and love before I bid adieu to the old world that once was home.

My footprints receded perch by perch.

*salaam: a gesture of greeting or showing respect by slightly bowing your head and touching your forehead. 

***

(2) A Letter to God from Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve

We, the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve,

Hail! To thee, the God.

The 21st century’s paradise is circumscribed in optical rays,

Invisible and yet are as intrinsic to our existence as is air;

It’s the new formula of our existence. 

We are born and blessed with digital technology,

The Forbidden Fruit of Knowledge is no longer forbidden.

Multi-directional optic paths flood us with information,

From bits to byte; to kilobyte to gigabyte…

The Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve,

Philosophises a lot, unlike Socrates and Plato.

We have become the thinkers with the shortest span of Memorial Lane, 

In nanoseconds, we jump over to the other problems.

Yes, problems hail from our world too,

And, we are not looking for solutions,

Because GROK is our go-to chatbot.

We think about the past, the present and the future,

And end up as the most anxious creatures on the earth.

Acute anxiety is as severe as the optic waves around us.

We are the Beta Gen, and our future weighs upon the chatbots.

The machines are the upgraded thinking beings,

We, the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve, are perplexed.

We no longer wander in wonderment in search of newness,

To find the spirit of Paradise through the veins of passion and zeal.

Anxiety, Confusion and Chatbots rule our existence,

We are an amalgamation of the best and the worst. 

***

(3) Snowflakes!

Snowflakes!

A wonder, a feeling and a pocket memory,

Every drop of that white pearl draws us

more towards the pristine state,

A pristine state of mind and numbness.

Snowflakes!

Frozen feet and crunched stomach,

It reminds us of hidden hunger and meagre brunch.

A drab and dull feeling on the static faces of the hill folks,

They are unmoved by the intermittent fall of the white petals from the sky.

Snowflakes!

Nature smiled while the trees danced in the cold breeze,

The street dog ran under the tunnel,

The bears went into hibernation;

And, unafraid of intrusion, the forest hummed in sleep.

Snowflakes!

It burned our desires in cold,

Rodin, the thinker, like everyone, crouched under the blanket.

Chattering, shivering and sneering did not go in vain,

Again, we have a sight to relish and recuperate.

***

Bio: Gazala Khan is a teaching faculty in the Department of English, School of Languages at Doon University, Dehradun, India. Her area of interest in cultural studies and literature traces the cultural histories of India and relevant subject matters through creative and literary works. Her works have been published in international journals and magazines like Discover Social Science and Health, International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy, Journal of Global Faultlines, The Fictional Café, Borderless Journal, Himakhaya, GNOSIS and Dialogue. 

She co-edited a book संवर्धन A Roadmap for Development of Uttarakhand: Vision 2025, published in 2024. She has also been working on her creative and literary projects that she plans to emulate through poems.

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Setu, May 2025