Is Life Child's Play? Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

Bliss was it in that dusk on Skywalk today
To see children enjoying time, every way.
Boys are so active and noisy, pushing and pulling,
Girls so pretty and competitive, Badi hokey bomb banegi!

Suffer little children to come unto me
For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Very true even in Bandra East slums in 2011 AD.

Since the days I was a kid, more than half century ago,
The distance between parents and children
Has reduced very much, I can see.

Not one child I saw this evening
Looked sad, or morose: not one mother
Or father should at his or any child.

Jai Ho! The Indian Child of today
Will surely go forth, and conquer
Wealth, skill and technology.

My hope and fear is different:
Capacity to look inward – a la Kathopanishad,
Will have to be learnt by the child alone,
For the parents have become materialistic.