Skip to main content

The Clown on the Trapeze


Each faltering step, each fall of mine,
Makes you burst out into laughter:
Because I am the clown in the pack
Because the motley is my birthmark.

Each swing of leotards on trapezes
Sighs in comic relief in the tail of my coat:
Because the show must go on
Because the Master is watching it.

Watching it is His way
Of creating and preserving;
Watching it is your way
Of playing for a while
The game within the game;
On a spiralling ladder
Of intertwining Venn diagrams;
With no place determinate
For the clown in motley:

Because the show must go on


Note: I wrote this poem almost two decades ago.  Both the show and the clown have changed quite a bit, and they go on entertaining those concerned in their own ways. 

Comments

  1. Ravish ManiJune 20, 2015 at 10:15 PM

    Very sensitive & profound!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJune 20, 2015 at 10:34 PM

    The thought behind the poem will always stand valid. A clown must exist for the show to go on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJune 21, 2015 at 10:21 AM

    beautiful and poignant.....

    ReplyDelete
  4. sunaina sharmaJune 21, 2015 at 10:38 AM

    nostalgic...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Roohi BhatnagarJune 21, 2015 at 1:03 PM

    The show must go on.. and we are the clowns..and still I want to know why?? Very nice poem, Sir.

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownJune 21, 2015 at 10:03 PM

    Very meaningful. We are all clowns of somebody or the other.

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownJune 23, 2015 at 11:09 AM

    Profound indeed...

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownJuly 7, 2015 at 11:08 AM

    beautiful blog....

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sunshine-struckJuly 9, 2015 at 8:08 PM

    How tiring and monochromatic life could get after few years! Unless we don't put life into what we do.

    But,

    Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.

    -James Russell Lowell

    What do you say?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Titas BiswasJuly 18, 2015 at 6:59 PM

    Amazingly beautiful poem.
    Just for an information,please listen to 'The Show Must Go On' by Pink Floyd from their most famous album,'The Wall'.I am sure you'll find a similar psychedelic touch.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Titas BiswasJuly 18, 2015 at 6:59 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Titas BiswasJuly 18, 2015 at 6:59 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  13. UnknownJuly 23, 2015 at 7:13 PM

    I find no trace of yours on social media. Even you haven't updated your blog since a long while. I am worried. Are you alright?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Philip Verghese 'Ariel'September 26, 2015 at 10:20 AM

    Hi Tomichan,
    Good to meet you on your page.
    What pleasant surprise to meet yet writer from my native land.
    Good to read this, Well written piece!
    Yes the show must go on!!
    Keep going
    Keep writing
    Best regards
    Have a wonderful weekend
    ~ Phiip Ariel

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Mango Trees and Cats

Appu and Dessie, two of our cats, love to sleep under the two mango trees in front of our house these days. During the daytime, that is, when the temperature threatens to brush 40 degrees Celsius. The shade beneath the mango trees remains a cool 28 degrees or so. Mango trees have this tremendous cooling effect. When I constructed the house, the area in front had no touch of greenery as you can see in the pic below.  Now the same area, which was totally arid then, looks like what's below:  Appu and Dessie find their bower in that coolness.  I wanted to have a lot of colours around my house. I tried growing all sorts of flower plants and failed rather miserably. The climate changes are beyond the plants’ tolerance levels. Moreover, all sorts of insects and pests come from nowhere and damage the plants. Crotons survive and even thrive. I haven’t given up hope with the others yet. There are a few adeniums, rhoeos, ixoras, zinnias and so on growing in the pots. They are trying their
8 comments
Read more

Brownie and I - a love affair

The last snap I took of Brownie That Brownie went away without giving me a hint is what makes her absence so painful. It’s nearly a month and I know now for certain that she won’t return. Worse, I know that she didn’t want to leave me. She couldn’t have. Brownie is the only creature who could make me do what she wanted. She had the liberty to walk into my bedroom at any time of the night and wake me up for a bite of her favourite food. She would sit below the bed and meow. If I didn’t get up and follow her, she would climb on the bed and meow to my face. She knew I would get up and follow her to the cupboard where bags of cat food were stored.  My Mistress in my study Brownie was not my only cat; there were three others. But none of the other three ever made the kind of demands that Brownie made. If any of them came to eat the food I served Brownie at odd hours of the night, Brownie would flatly refuse to eat with them in spite of the fact that it was she who had brought me out of
5 comments
Read more

Terror Tourism 1

Jacob Martin Pathros was enthralled by the ad on terror tourism which promised to take the tourist to the terrorist-jungles of Chhattisgarh. Jacob Martin Pathros had already visited almost all countries, except the perverted South America, after retiring at the young age of 56 from an ‘aided’ school in Kerala. 56 is the retirement age in Kerala’s schools, aided as well as totally government-fed. Aided schools belong to the different religious groups in Kerala. They build up the infrastructure with the money extorted from the believers and then appoint as staff people who can pay hefty donations in the name of infrastructure. The state government will pay the salary of the staff. The private management will rake in millions by way of donations from job-seekers who are usually the third-class graduates from rich-class families. And there are no students to study in these schools because they are all Malayalam medium. Every Malayali wants to go to Europe or North America and hence Malay
12 comments
Read more

A Rat’s Death

I’m reading an anthology of Urdu stories written by different authors and translated into English by Rakshanda Jalil. These are stories taken from the rural backyards of India. I wish to focus on just one of them here today merely because I love it for its aesthetic intensity. A Rat’s Death by Zakia Mashhadi is the story of an impecunious man named Dhena who is a Musahar. Musahar is a Dalit community whose very name means ‘rat eater.’ Their main occupation is catching rats which they eat too because of inescapable destitution. One day Dhena is tempted by the offer made by Mishrji, a political broker. Go to the city and take part in a political rally and “You will get eight rupees, and also sherbet and puris with sabzi.” Puris and sabzi with sherbet to boot is a banquet for Dhena for whom even salt in his rat meat is a luxury. Dhena is scared of the city’s largeness and rush and pomp. But the reward is too tempting. The city people who eat puri-sabzi consider people like Dhena
10 comments
Read more