Alankar(Decor)-219 Poem by Indira Renganathan

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst(Gnome)

Gnomic poetry consists of meaningful sayings put into verse to aid the memory.
They were known by the Greeks as gnomes, from the Greek word for 'an opinion'.
A gnome was defined by the Elizabethan critic Henry Peacham (1576? -1643?) as
'a saying pertaining to the manners and common practices of men, which declareth,
with an apt brevity, what in this our life ought to be done, or not done'.
It belongs to the broad family of wisdom literature, which expresses general truths
about the world. Topics range over the divine and secular, to hierarchical social relationships.


Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst

An old man was scared of his karmic life and hell
On the verge of death he feared the beatings of hell
To avoid hell his way of atonement he found
Began wishing all good luck every now and then
To even some one imagined when there was none
Soon that old man became so dear to every one
He was the good-wishing uncle to all around
He went on like this till his end to avoid hell
On his death people prayed for him for heaven well
But who knows well where he was sent, heaven or hell?