Ashok Chakravarthy Tholana is a writer, poet and review writer, hailing from Hyderabad City, Telangana State, INDIA. Over 1500 of his poems have been published till date in various literary magazines, newspapers, journals, e-zines, anthologies etc. across 90 countries in the world. Mr. Ashok is conferred with several prestigious national and international awards, that include FOUR Doctorates and quite a lot of laurels & commendations for his poetry promoting quest for Universal Peace, World Brotherhood, Environment Consciousness, Protection of Nature, Safeguarding Children’s Rights etc. His poem “Plant More Trees” for United Nations ‘Billion Tree Campaign’ was one among the 9 worldwide poem-songs selected and set to tune by Md. Iqbal Behleem, noted Pakistani music director (Star Light Music Inc., USA). The CD was released by “Association Pour la Terra”, France and Ashok’s poem-song received wide international acclaim from several schools across the world. He was one of the few international acclaimed peace poets who was designated with the title, ‘Universal Peace Ambassador’. He also happen to be one of the 8 world poets who received rare laurels from the Malaysian Government and was conferred with the prestigious ‘Medallion Pulara’ in recognition to his contribution for ‘world peace through poetry’. His poem titled, THE WORLD NEEDS PEACE” was chosen as one of the best 12 poems during 2016 and published in a special issue brought out to mark the Formosa Poetry Festival, Taiwan, titled, “Literature of the Saline Land”. That apart, another of his poem, A REAL CONCERN, became part of study material for Class-X students in Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan, which has 850 schools in India, Moscow and Kathmandu. Mr. Ashok’s poems have been translated into 15 international languages.
The invisible sky high above
The twinkling stars steep above
The ecstatic heart, full of love
Echo with feelings of deep love.
When the teenage thirst for love
Surged to grasp the ‘Light of Love'
When in the dark, I got eclipsed
Like a glowing spark, you emerged.
As the brightness of stars faint
Before the Sun's powerful light,
So did your love-laced feelings
Erased all the uncertain longings.
Enslaved by love's ever-new delight
All the turmoil's of past, I did forget,
Enriched with your trust-filled words
A renewed life,began in a new world.
No force can slay love and emotion
That's the solid force of love's fountain;
Day by day, months and years elapse
What remains ever-new is love-clasp.
In the journey of life, betwixt joys and grief
Upheavals are but common in every life,
The illusions of desires, ego and supremacy
Ignite the fires of dissent and despondency.
Loitering in the lobby of past-life thoughts
Memories roll back to unfold the past;
Down deep the misty lanes of memory
I navigate the paths of past life and its glory.
Though aware, time and tide wait for none
Hunting desires and fancies block our vision,
The thoughts that try to illumine the heart
Faint before the bonfire of yearning thoughts.
Ruthless destiny, sporting a merciless sword
Anytime may cut asunder all human bonds;
Yes, when the light of knowledge peeps at us
Transform; lest, the wheel of time may break us.
Being far away from home town
Homesick, I feel gradually let down
For life’s future, I feel compelled
Lest I doubt, my future gets toppled.
The fleeting time and the advancing age
Generate in heart, a deep-longing rage;
A rage to go back to home town of bliss
As day by day it looks like ‘life’s big miss’.
Green pastures and curvy pathways
Surrounding hills and piercing sunrays,
The ever-new charm of fragrant flowers
Fill my mind with the aroma of memoirs.
While dawn awakens me with a desire
Every dusk cautions me of life’s future,
Feeling caught between the two shores
What to opt, home town or the life I adore?
Under the light of lamp of knowledge
Inwardly, thoughts fight to get an edge,
Outwardly I fail but to cut-off the thread
That links my home town with life’s bread.
As childhood steadily leads on to future
Worldly delusions entice more and more,
Caught in the web of materialistic world
One fails to escape from its grapple hold.
The hankering for fleeting pleasures
Keeps growing on without any measure,
Tempted to choose them as preferential
One assumes them to be truly beneficial.
Adolescence appears and disappears
Soon the thread of mid-age life appears,
Steadily the body gets weak and feeble
Eclipsed past appears in heaps of rubble.
The cord of desires gets apart eternally
And shades of ignorance fade gradually,
Mind cleansed of self-centric thoughts
Experience a sense of realization, at last.
At every transforming stage of every life
Everyone is cautioned by veiled inner-self,
To realize; one should lead a righteous life
For joy eternal, instead of haunting grief.
Like a welcome shower
Dousing the heat of a sultry summer,
Like a bright shining sun
Piercing the clouds of a mid-monsoon,
Like the crescent moon in the sly
Peeping through the star-lit cloudy sky,
Unfading memories of childhood
Traverse all through life’s varied mood.
Grown from the cozy lap of mother
Through the secured hands of father,
The whirl-pools of advancing age,
Leave foot-prints at every life’s stage.
Those colorful and naughty chosen ranks
Those ever playful and childish pranks,
Become more treasured, as age advances
Till fag end, they remain top memories.
While innocence reigns the days
Future, looming large in many a way,
Yes, whatever be the outcome
Facing any storm that strikes;
One should not ignore basic morals
To experience and tame life’s hassles
For leading a content-filled life
Bearing and sharing, pain and grief.
Everyone shun his dismal stature
As if he’s not a human by nature
Forlorn, he stares into the void skies
With deep sunk tear-filled eyes;
Bone sucked and almost lifeless
Yet, he tries to move on, pitiless.
His tattered clothes, feeble body
Seems a dust-laden lifeless body
At times, street dogs hound him
At times, children too taunt him
If fate is so cruel towards a human
What’s our concern for a co-human?
Caught in the vortex of illusions
Veiled by ignorance and possessions,
They incite us with fleeing a nuisance
To ignore the bond of care and concern.
But, the beggar on the street lane
Imparts to one and all, a fitting lesson
To rid ourselves from selfish motives
Lest, we cannot fulfill life’s objective.
