Avtar Singh Sandhu, one of the greatest poets of Punjabi literature. He was born on 9th September, 1950 in Jalandhar to a middle-class family. His father was a solider and wrote poems as a hobby. Avtar Singh Sandhu’s pen name was Pash and at the age of 18 years he had published his first book of poems.
One of Pash’s famous poems was “the most dangerous thing is the demise of our dreams” (सबसे ख़तरनाक होता है हमारे सपनों का मर जाना – Sabse Khatarnak hota hai hamare sapnon ka mar jaana). In 2005, the poem was considered into 11th syllabus of NCERT’s Hindi text book.
SUMMARY OF THE POEM IN ENGLISH –
In the poem the poet explains and compares which is the most dangerous occurrence in life. He brings out various life experiences and compares with the demise of dreams of a person which is the most dangerous occurrence of life.
The poet explains in the following manner –
If our hard work is robbed by someone, it is not the most dangerous occurrence;
If a police officer gets hold of us, it is not the most dangerous occurrence;
Even if someone shows disloyalty or if we fall for materialism, it is not considered as a dangerous occurrence;
To be stuck in sleep is definitely a sorrowful experience;
To be silent and to remain in silence is definitely a sorrowful experience;
But not the most dangerous occurrence;
To remain quite admits corruption after knowing the truth is definitely a sorrowful experience;
To study under the brightness of firefly is definitely a sorrowful experience;
To waste time by doing nothing is definitely a sorrowful experience;
But not the most dangerous occurrence;
The dangerous occurrence in life is to be in silence;
The dangerous occurrence is when you are not feeling the pain for the biased treatment you are facing but silently facing it all;
Doing the same routine everyday of going to work from home and back home in the evening;
But the most dangerous occurrence is the demise of our dreams;
The most dangerous occurrence is when the time in your watch is running but the time in your eyes is still;
The dangerous occurrence is when our eyes become numb even after being the spectator of all the occurrence;
The eyes after becoming numb forgets to kiss the world with passion;
The eyes become astray in the materialistic world;
The eyes get attracted to a path that has lack of interest and sticks to a routine;
The most dangerous is the moon that rises after the war in war fields with numbed bodies;
But still your eyes does not catch hold of it;
The most dangerous occurrence is the song that fights along to reach your ears;
The sound of doors banging outside the hooligans house to scare people;
The most dangerous occurrence is that night which takes away the confidence of the person;
And the night remains so dark that the person becomes so week to fight back;
If our hard work is robbed by someone, it is not the most dangerous occurrence;
If a police officer gets hold of us, it is not the most dangerous occurrence;
Even if someone shows disloyalty or if we fall for materialism, it is not considered as a dangerous occurrence;
But the most dangerous occurrence is the demise of our dreams;
