SANTOSH BAKAYA

Dogs Of War

The boy in torn shorts and bathroom slippers 
runs helter- skelter on shards and shrapnel. 
Panic -stricken. It is a scorching day. 
In a dented bathtub, a father bathes his kids-
a daughter and son. 

Time and again an old woman looks here and there,
burrows creased.
Her eyes desperately searching – searching – searching. 
“There, there I just heard him.” 
She mumbles, ears pricked, eyes keen. 
Wiping beads of perspiration from her forehead. 
“Granny, don’t you remember, our dog is dead.”
“I just heard him.” She insists, almost stumbling on arthritic legs, 
begging – beseeching- pleading their dog to come back.
 “But I hear him barking.” 
She says pouring milk in his bowl.
 
“It is not a dog barking …just another rocket attack.” 
Her young son consoles her. 

Meanwhile, the dogs of war continue barking – relentlessly.

The Smiling Old Man 

There are petrified people fleeing. 
An old man suffering from dementia smiles beatifically,
as his grandson pulls him out of the refugee camp. 
The old man smiles and smiles, like an innocent child, 
looking at the billowing smoke, while people choke and cough.
“I want a chocolate, can I get one?”  
He beseeches, looking blankly at the rubble,
under which many of his kith are trapped. 
“Run granddad, run. Run faster”, pleads the child.
“I want a chocolate”, he insists. 
The child bursts into helpless tears.
The grandfather smiles the most innocent smile.  
 
A Crisis of Humanity 

The mother holding her son, 
the father his daughter, 
a tear- streaked child clinging to his grandmother,
bawling his guts out. 
Running- racing – dashing helter- skelter.  


Mothers with kids in their arms, wailing, shrieking. 
Gaza’s olive farmers moan, 
“Our hearts burn. The war has destroyed the harvest.”  
“My father is missing!” laments a fourteen year old.
“I want Mama and Baba,” cries another. 
While a grandmother wheels her grandson in the hallway 
of the operating department in a hospital, stuck in a limbo. 
No idea where to go. No idea where to go!  

SANTOSH BAKAYA: Winner of International Reuel Award for literature for Oh Hark, 2014, The Universal Inspirational Poet Award [Pentasi B Friendship Poetry and Ghana Government, 2016,] Bharat Nirman Award for literary Excellence, 2017, Setu Award, 2018, [Pittsburgh, USA] for ‘stellar contribution to world literature.’ Keshav Malik Award, 2019, for ‘staggeringly prolific and quality conscious oeuvre’.Chankaya Award  [Best Poet of the Year, 2022, Public Relations Council of India,], Eunice Dsouza Award 2023, for ‘rich and diverse contribution to poetry, literature and learning’,[Instituted  by WE Literary Community]  poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, TEDx speaker, creative writing mentor, Santosh Bakaya, Ph.D has been acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu [Vitasta, 2015], her poems have been translated into many languages, and short stories have won many awards, both national and international. She writes a popular weekly column, Morning Meanderings in Learning and Creativity. Com. Her twenty- three books cover different genres; her latest being, What is the Metre of The Dictionary?