By Aditi Bhardwaj
When a man is born, he opens his little shining eyes,
Greets the world aloud with a tender cries.
Cradled in palms, soft as clouds in the sky,
A bundle of love, with no reason to try.
He knows not mine,nor faces unknown,
Every face he meets feels like his own.
No walls of color,no measure of name-
The world is his, and all hearts are the same.
That's why we call a child an angel, a sign,
A human form of God, so pure, divine.
As he grows world begins to mold,
With tender steps, he walks the path untold.
His own ones whisper,""life is a race"",
Leading him into the night, whispering lies of joy in a fight.
As time flows, a soul once pure and kind,
Turns into striving, restless mind-
Chasing worth in battles undefined.
Whenever his path grows smooth and bright,
His ride halts still at ego's height.
But when the way strays from his plan,
He slips into gulfs no Joy can span.
Win or loss, he walks the same dark shell,
A race never meant to run, carved by the hands of hell.
Competition-a drug, once tasted,craves again,
It creeps through joy, through pride, through pain.
He competes in school, then at the job's front line,
Then with his kin, as if life draws the line.
Not once, not twice-it feeds on the soul's own flame,
An endless trap, yet we call it life's game.
The man we see is you and me-
We shape this race unknowingly.
We lay down grief, stone by stone,
And call it life, though not our own.
It's time to pause, to breathe, to see,
This life is not meant for rivalry.
One chance we get beneath the sun-
Not to compete, but to just become, the one you are, a voice, a breath, a Soul set free.