The Flag-Bearer

In my hand are flags of different colours,
different signs.
If someone’s is a sign of blessing, someone’s of war,
someone’s of hatred, someone’s of compassion,
I do not know.
I keep hoisting the flags, one after another,
toward the sky.

I walk like anyone in a procession.
The entire world’s attention
is riveted on me.
No one is ahead of me, none.
Whether I am being followed,
I am not aware.

But I am not the Himalayas,
I’m only one of the trees in a vast forest,
nameless, lean, not so fair;
an earth-bound comet in a galaxy of stars.
Believe me, I do not know the mantra,
the Vedas;
I only babble.
I am not Satyakama, but Jabali’s bastard child.
Somebody, please believe in my confession.

I am not acquainted with
any of thirty-three hundred thousand gods.
I am not friend  or enemy to the demons.
Sukra, the demons’ guru
and Vrihaspati, the gods’ guru
are all the same to me
Whereas I jump into the arena
not knowing the side I belong to;
At the end, I am told,
victory is mine
in the fierce battle.

Even if I stand, stripped naked,
with a white flag
my warring opposites bow before me
in surrender and seek truce.

Who had declared war?
Where? When?

Lonely, cruel is the sorrow of a helpless victor.
I keep flying
whatever flag comes to my hand.
It is for others
to decipher the signs, whatever, of the flags.
My calling is to let the flags flutter.

As there is not a second sun,
one does not have a second flag.
My calling is to be the flag, fluttering.
Please somebody
believe in my confession.

THE FLAG-BEARER