Who has not envied J.S. Mill
his princely education?
Not Henry Adams! Gobind Rai!
Cambyses’ filiation!
Rare as Sikandar’s santhiā was,
the Khalsā’s must be higher;
each rampant Singh stands savā lakh,
forged in gian’s candent fire.
One-thousand-one parans for lullabies,
to order the soul in the womb;
a rāga a day keeps haumai at bay,
that Sabad’s seeds may bloom.
Punjabi, Sanskrit, Persian, Braj—
in languages lion cubs swim;
versifying in learned meters, the
Sahibzāde’s lives they limn.
Ungabaroofied by loutish gyrations,
warriors weave intricate paintare;
disdaining to tipple from māyā’s nipple,
GurSikhs spurn booze’s cheap holiday.
In politics, literature, history, art—
study what humans can be;
the ignoble alone is alien to those
who grasp what sets qaums free.
Read Nagsen! Plutarch! Bhāī Gurdas!
if you seek true paideia;
still Alexandria’s scrolls en masse’d
replace not a vidvān’s sevā.
Unfazed by fortune’s sudden waves,
with grace amidst heartrending pain—
astride the five’s inner multitude,
in sahaj such GurSikhs shall reign.
_____
Nihal Singh