This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 5; the fifth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.
This entry is by Shalini Puthiyedam, one of the contributors on www.ubiquitense.com
1945 was the year it was
When life was snuffed with an almighty burst
The God of a bomb enough to kill some millions
And maim some millions more
Screaming, melting, running, falling
Wilting, burning, man and nature
All was killed, the land was laid waste
Hiroshima and Nagasaki came to be
The burning, bleeding, dying testimonies of
What can be achieved!
All in a day’s work!
1984 was the year it was
The first day of a cold November
The morrow of a day
When a leader was slain and laid
By her own bodyguards no less
They moved around the streets of Delhi
Lumpen elements baying for blood
Laying low and seeking out
A turbaned head from the crowd
“Off with his head” they cried
And made a thousand widows overnight
Oh what can be achieved!
All in a day’s work!
The same 1984 it was
On a cold December night
A cloud was suddenly brought to light
By the coughing, writhing victims
As they died
Of ingesting too much Methyl Isocyanate
The present from the Union Carbide
To the sleeping unsuspecting Bhopal that night
They continue to plead and cry
The victims for the redress that is theirs by right
But as you would by now know
It’s all a sorry plight of nothing for no one
Well…what can be achieved!
All in a day’s work!
December 6, 1992 is etched in the minds of every Indian
As the day on which
The worshippers of Ram and Lakshman
Carrying the tridents and spears of Shiva
The destructor in the Indian Pantheon
Decided to undo the wrong meted out to their Ram
By a “barbarian” Muslim a few hundred years back
And razed to the ground
The Babri Masjid at Ayodhya
While with that stroke they also deceived
The confidence of a lot
Of Muslims in India who believed
That India was their homeland too
As much as their Hindu brethren
Oh…What can be achieved!
All in a day’s work!
Moving down the years to circa 2001
September 11th or 9/11 as it is rechristened now
Became a red letter day in the history of modern man
When it was shown how
The best laid security systems of men and nations
Can be felled with the utmost ingenuity
With no recourse to rocket technology
Just ram a plane into the towers
The twins who symbolize America’s power
The collateral damage suffered was of course
By the way a necessary evil
What can be achieved!
All in a day’s work!
And what did America do?
It unleashed its war on terror
Wanted to shock and awe
But ended up creating more horror
And this time spread all around the world
Terror struck
In London, in Madrid, in Malaysia, in Mumbai
And they wanted to show
That awe was also their prerogative
To strike at will in all manner creative
Oh…What could be achieved!
All in a day’s work!
And as I recount the man made achievements
Of dubious merit in the course of
A day in the lives of all men
How can I leave out what nature accomplished
In the same span of a day
In the lives of all men
It was the 26th of December 2004
When Mother Nature struck back
To show her spite at the mean human kind
She unleashed on us a Tsunami so big
It tore at the way the modern human lives
It held in its grasp a hundred thousand and more people
And took them away to their watery last
It made us realize for a time at least
That faced with the might of a huge wave
We would not last even with our brave face
Well…what all was achieved!
All in a day’s work!
Pic Sources:
millionface.com, news24online.com, studentorgs.utexas.edu, 2.bp.blogspot.com, tjenarvi.com, stangbangers.com
Shalini Puthiyedam is an engineer, NGO volunteer, teacher, French linguist, amateur singer, home maker and a world citizen who has aspirations for a just and equal world. You may wanna follow her @shalinipv
The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.
Hi Shalini, welcome to Blog-a-Ton.. Will return soon to read this post but right now dropped by to cnfrm if u are following Blog-a-Ton through the Google Friend Connect (aka Followers widget). If not, plz start doing it asap to bcm eligible for this event.. Just a small tradition
Hi Vipul.
Tradition honoured.
Am following you now.
Compelling thoughts and the leitmotif of ‘All in a day’s work’ to bind them
The poem reminded me of Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’
Hi Madhu.
Thanks for the comparison.
Its my first foray and its just a humble attempt. Thank you very much indeed. 
Ohh..I loved it….Wonderful way to represent all in a days work. I wish we had any way to remove these days out of our history
Hi there.
Thank you for reading. And yeah…certainly…how i wish we could just erase those days’ work from our history because somewhere the lessons from history are not being learnt.
An Awesome Presentation, really to be appreciated, Go on Shalini, waiting more and more from you
Hi there.
Will sure try to do my best. Thank you for reading and for the appreciation too
Good one! The post is thought provoking and made me think for a while….not just that, it made me travel back in time and recollect reading about the many things mentioned above(viz Tsunami,terror strike et al)..as for the ones which happened in the century bygone, the post sparked my imagination and made me wonder how would it actually feel to witness such things?!?! Phew!! Thinking makes me shudder with sweat!
Thanks for reading. Yes, we shudder to think of these events even. Just imagine the plight of those who lived them! We have to treasure more what we enjoy.
Hey Shalini just luvd it.. As it is, I have a weakness for sch poems that portray some events and stories.. The ending about the mother nature’s fury was a brilliant way to bring to an end the humane acts, all in a day’s work!
Hi Vipul.
Thanks for the read and the very encouraging comments. Will continue to try and do my best. The competition is just by the way. I hope I will have something meaningful to say most times if not always.
Blog-a-Ton seems to be nice concept. This is a nice piece of work. Remembered the past.
I am holding Avant Garde Bloggies Awards here, go nominate your posts (and even your friends’) and participate here:
http://alchemistpoonam.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/the-avant-garde-bloggies-awards-2009-kick-off/
Hey…that was nice of you to leave a comment. Will take a look at yours too.
shalini i read the article.the comparison is appreciable.It started from heroshima and ends in tsunami most of them in december
Hi Prakash.
Thank you for the appreciation.
Hey…yes. As i was writing even I was struck by the fact that most events happened in December. Curious coincidence?!
Wonderfully well-written!
Hey Pushkala.
Good to hear from you. Thank you for the encouragement.
Loved it! Loved it! Absolutely loved it! The stupidity and selfishness of human beings captured with that one wonderful post!
Hi there.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!. Just thought I’d match your enthusiasm.
On a more serious note, I am very thankful for the opportunity given to me and I am humbled by the appreciation that has come from so many quarters.
Lovely poem, heartfelt sentiments. Confronts reality head-on, melds poetry with history. A sublime fusion! Write on! :~)
Hi Ashok.
You can well imagine my complete delirious joy on hearing such fulsome praise from you. Thank you for taking time off to read.
Beautifully told!
Beautiful poem. The emotions have been captured so well in words.
Loved it to the core.
All the very best! Cheerios!
Hi Karthik.
Thank you for the encouragement and the appreciation. I hope I will be able to share honestly whenever I attempt.
sensitive and sensible….
Touching and quite retrospective
Contemporary and comprehensive…..
keep exploring the avenues of more social domains
Thank you Mahesh and I think you’ve written a very good piece too in such few words. Been reading the other posts all through the day.
Dear Shalini,
Good poem…
Glad to see ‘circa’ in one of the lines.
Nice of you to remember the national disasters…
Many people don’t !
Good Luck,
Renjith
Hi Renjith.
Thank you for taking time off to read and comment. I have touched on some international disasters too. My attempt was to capture anything that was accomplished in a day’s work and sadly enough they all turned out to be disasters.
Nice article. Humans are leaving a rather indelible mark on the world!
thank you for visiting my blog. All I can say is Intelligence, creativity and insanity are all states of mind easily induced with the right application of a certain mind altering substance found in abundance, viz., caffeine!!!
Hi Aneet.
Yes they are leaving an unpleasant indelible mark…dont you think and do they have a right to is the moot question.
And hurrah to caffeine for inducing such ingenuous works.
Thank you for taking time off to read and comment.
Wow! It was a wonderful concept. The post was just awesome. Liked it very much.
Cheers!
Thank you Nethra. I am yet to reach your post.
Have been going through al the competition entries and its not that simple I must admit. To decide that is…:)
Wonderful poem.
This world have become one giant chess board. Sadly!
Hi Roshmi.
Thank you for the comments and yeah you are right. The pawns are really the ones who get the worst of all the big shocks. The front line of defence is what gets sacrificed to safeguard the interests of the powerful heavyweights calling the shots.
Hi Shalini,
Nice poem. I like the way it is cited. My thoughts: Man is the only creature of god who can neither live in harmony with his fellow beings nor allows other creatures to live peacefully. Generations he has been fighting for power, money, religion, knowing that he is going to die one day. Now he stands facing the fury of nature, his machine guns, weapons are of no use to him. He has to but helplessly watch nature fury and is now fantically searching way to inhibit other planets…Only nature can teach him the real truth of life…
I however do believe on one point you made that people fight in the name of religion. Man finds different paths to god but for god all men are one and equal. So it is not ram or rahim or christ…it is man who creates the difference. It also amazes me why people think Shiva only destroys. He is one form of god, and I truly see him as an epitome of love and devotion. He destroys but he destroys ego, pride, all the negative attributes of life. Sathyam, Shivam and Sundaram, Shivam means love. He teaches us to love life through meditation, through yoga , through self realization therby destroying all our unnecessary thoughts. He does not destroy ilfe, he does create difficult paths for us to travel but in the end it is triumph.
Yes I loved your poem…I guess the two words inbetween raised my eyebrows being a follower:)…Otherwise i really like this poem…
Regards
Sulakshana
Thank you Sulakshana for taking time off to read. I used the popular acceptance of the role of Shiva and meant no disrespect with those words.
Thank you for the encouragement and the positive feedback on my effort.
that is now really the truth…all in a day’s work you could build wonders and demolish them…but nature still has the PANIC button in her cockpit!!
nice poem and neatly knit.You dint miss out any major event..and you dint include mediocre ones…although(this is my personal opinion) you could have mentioned some good stuff that happened all in a day’s work..(ahmmm i cant think any this moment…but still..you might just find one.. 
)
all the best..
Hi Naren.
Yeah…I agree that its totally dark and believe me I would have liked very much to be able to add a silver lining to the dark cloud but I really could come up with nothing that was a collective positive action all in a day. That was really sad.
Maybe we can hope that the coming December 12th, the summit at Copenhagen might right that skewed stat and do something positive for once all in a day’s work. Let’s hope.
Nicely done!
I’m horrible at writing poems. So I’m always awestruck when I read something as marvellous as this! Loved it!
Preeti
Hi Preeti.
Thank you for the compliment. And I am too neither a poem writing types. Struggled for a while to come up with something for the topic.
Awesome, fantastic!! Loved it to the core!! All the events touched the bottom of the soul!!
Very nice shalini!!
Hi Shruti.
Thank you for dropping in here. And thank you too for the great encouragement.
Very profound!!!!
Hi Pushpee.
Thanks for reading the piece and for the compliment too. Said a lot with one word.
Hi again.
Sorry two words.
hey really good .. those were indeed history making ‘days’ ….
Hi Naveen.
Thanks for dropping by. Those were the history making days of the kind I prefer we not see again.
nice poem..
Thank you Saimanohar.
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