Bravery Award

I know a brave man who walks the earth like you and me.
He is common and ordinary but there is much more to see.
He wakes up early morning to say his prayers first.
Then has his morning food which can’t be called breakfast.
Walks down the staircase with his small suitcase.
Wears a bald, a creaseless shirt with a pen,
A net trouser, a polished shoe and a straight face.
Takes the routine bus at 9 o’ clock sharp.
Though his school is not too far but he can’t excuse himself for getting stuck up.
A history teacher he is for 30 budding futures.
But who knows why in the pages of history his face turns white.
Yet he smiles at the students to say, “History paves the way to present and future.
So, it’s the knowledge that will determine your pride through gesture”.
In the teacher’s room he never speaks too much.
That the reason why they call him ‘a stopped watch’.
He smiled at them when he heard it for the first time.
And said, “History is an account of time. But for us history stopped when India was free.
I tried to keep track of time even after 1947 but my watch stopped in 1993”.
No body got what he tried to say.
Some said mad, other said he thinks in a different way.
Student’s like him for he appreciates their view.
He teaches them not just to read but analyze too.
“History is written by those who have won as we all know,
But does it mean there can’t be another theory which will go against the flow.”
When the last bell rings and it’s time to go home.
He pulls himself to his home for he has nowhere else to be.
Then while climbing the staircase again he moves to his room sluggishly.
Opening the rusted lock his feet searches for ground.
Switches on the light of his 12x12 world of silent sound.
He sits back for a while maybe to ponder over how time could be.
But his watch has long stopped in 1993.
Then making food which can’t be called dinner.
He goes to bed keeping the Bravery Award in the memory shelf
But he will never be called a winner.
And as he sleeps, I look at him and feel inspired by his story.
Here lies the man who has won another day in his life of unwritten history.
He may look common and simple like we.
For he is still alive while time stopped for him when he lost his child and wife in the blast in 1993.