From Now To Then Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

Saw the bright planet Venus
Last evening on the Guwahati sky;
Felt bad that the heavens
Were no longer searched by me
Regularly, or astronomy studied.
Do I have to leave Bandra
To view the heavens?

But down on earth, President of India
Mrs Pratibha Patil,
Was on state visit to this town,
And wherever we went, though in car
With red beacon, yet we were not allowed
To turn right to the river road,
Beside which the mighty Brahmaputra flows
Silent, wide, gaining and losing,
Relentlessly.

Saw the river first in 1969 January,
My impression was of the sea
For I couldn’t see the other bank
We were probationers of 1968 IAS batch
On Bharat Darshan, seeing the country
In batches of twenty, for the railway
Bogie that was our house or hotel
Had only twenty berths.