By Badri RainaYou died the day you were born.
And immortalized
The day you died.
Four hundred years after
We come to you for
Knowledge of our world
Which you saw coming
As your sentience unfurled.
Used to the full, you
Remain inexhaustible.
Your incomparable words shame
Our cocksure certainties;
In infinity of percipience you
Enact the storm and the breeze.
May, O Peer, in our wilderness,
The thirst for you increase.
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Badri Raina is a well-known commentator on politics, culture and society. His columns on the Znet have a global following. Raina taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is the author of the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. He has several collections of poems and translations. His writings have appeared in nearly all major English dailies and journals in India.
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