This is a poem I wrote for my daughter to recite at school for elocution on Republic Day with the theme India My Country. Hope you enjoy it and Happy Republic Day.

India Time And Again

Civilizations lost in time

Mohenjodaro and Harappa remind

Civic sense was in our blood

Even before the Indus flood

Yet today

that civic sense

doesn’t seem as intense

Was it washed away?

Many a philosophy of love and life

right and wrong, and human strife,

grew from seed to tree right here

So let them prosper free of fear

A melting pot of culture

Spiced with pepper

India twinkled and shone

in the eyes of many a trader

Until, in the ages dark

we lost our confidence and spark,

But our embers found their fire

stemming from a burning desire

to be free

to shape our destiny

Today I see

A land of opportunity,

a growing economy,

vistas of endless possibility

Yet there are many

in my vicinity

for whom the picture

isn’t as rosy.

You see,

more or less,

like anything else,

we’re a work in progress.

In this land of varried terrain,

Mountain, valley forest and plain,

We rise to meet challenges

time and again.