Gave memorial honours to his dead father

KarunaBeginner

जूते

Joote

1 min read 1 versesMemory Death

1 verses · ~1 min

जूते वहीं थे उनमें पैर नहीं थे बीच-बीच में उनमें फफूंद लग जाता था क्योंकि कोई पहनता नहीं था निरुपयोग से वे कुछ सख़्त भी पड़ गए थे, उनके तलों में धूल या कीचड़ नहीं लगा था उन्हें कोई हटाता नहीं था क्योंकि वे दिवंगत पिता के थे फिर एक दिन वो बिला गए, शायद अँधेरे में मौक़ा पाकर वे ख़ुद ही अंत की ओर चले गए

इति

Rasa: Karuna
Stanzas: 1
Lines: 11
Reading time: ~1 min
Form: Free verse
Metre: free verse
Rhyme: none

The poem evokes a profound mood of sorrow, absence, and melancholic resignation, underscored by the karuna rasa of grief and compassion. A visual rendering of this scene would depict a pair of abandoned leather shoes resting motionless in a quiet, dust-settled corner of a home, their unused surfaces faintly marred by patches of white mold and stiffened by neglect. These empty shoes serve as poignant symbols of a departed father, representing the heavy void left by mortality and the halting, fragile nature of human memory as physical objects slowly outlive their owners. The artistic tone is deeply elegiac and desolate, capturing the quiet tragedy of domestic relics that linger as ghosts of a life before mysteriously vanishing into the dark.

जूते (Joote), by Ashok Vajpeyi runs to 11 lines, set as Single stanza, free verse. Its governing rasa is Karuna, shaded by Shanta. The metre is free verse. Rhyme falls as none.

It belongs to the 1941 · 2008 span of Ashok Vajpeyi's working life, and keeps the plain, spoken register that period is known for.

Read it for दिवंगत प्रियजनों की वस्तुओं से जुड़ी यादें और उनका विलोप and समय के साथ स्मृतियों का धुंधला होना. 2 words in it carry older or regional senses, so the poem rewards a second pass.

The verse is hung beside Gave memorial honours to his dead father: Bathed in a warm, reverent emotional atmosphere, the watercolor captures a solemn act of filial piety and ancestral worship within the traditional Hindu Shraddha ritual. A devoted son sits in quiet concentration,…

Words worth pausing on

दिवंगत: मृत या परलोकवासी
बिला: गायब हो जाना या खो जाना

Threads

Memory Death

The Poet

अशोक वाजपेयी

Ashok Vajpeyi

1941 · 2008

Ashok Vajpeyi occupies a towering position in contemporary Hindi letters as both a prolific poet and a master architect of cultural institutions. Born in 1941 in Durg, he joined the civil service and subsequently shaped India's modern arts landscape by founding institutions like Bharat Bhavan. Despite his immense public responsibilities, his poetry remains fiercely dedicated to the intimate and the personal. He views poetry as a civilizational defense against the crushing impersonality of the modern world. In collections like Shaher Ab Bhi Sambhavana Hai and his Sahitya Akademi Award winning Kahin Nahin Wahin, Vajpeyi explores the themes of love, death, nature, and absence with remarkable linguistic precision. He writes in free verse, employing a sparse and exact vocabulary to capture fleeting moments of domestic quiet or sudden metaphysical dread. His work has been translated across the globe, bringing modern Hindi sensibilities to a vast international audience. Vajpeyi demonstrates that a writer can navigate the complex machinery of the state while keeping the solitary flame of the poetic conscience brilliantly alive.