Colonel Mustard: Do you like Kipling, Ms.Scarlet?
Ms.Scarlet: Sure, I’ll eat anything.


v v v

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are loosing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet not look too good nor talk too wise.

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And loose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them ‘Hold on!’

If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with kings – nor loose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but non too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute,
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son

v v v

I was never a poem lover. I used to consider a book of poetry a waste of pages, and these books were never touched by my other contemporaries either. The school preferred to keep them though (it seemed to add a distinguished flavor to the library – AAAH poethry), so they collected dust on the shelves and occasionally sprinkled it on the other books (out of spite).
I preferred the straight forward and witty kind, if at all I ever bothered to read any. But funnily enough, when I’m stuck with writer’s block, I funnel out what I want to express through verse – nothing serious; I try to put in a pinch of humor to alleviate the boredom of reading it over, and to stop it from becoming straight faced and solemn like an Emily Dickensian. When it came to her, comparison to the Greek language finally becomes justified – it maybe pure ecstasy to some, but I simply cannot understand it. Never tried to.
I did try new avenues from the usual four line rhymer ( like the poem I made out of punctuation marks, but later couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say), and I normally stick to mono topics. The Chair. The Egg. The Reflection. The Shadow.

I came across this one (‘IF’) first during sixth grade. It was printed inside my school diary (which existed solely to write down our daily homework – I never used it) together with an essay on the dying habit of reading and some hymns. I remember being pretty impressed by it, though I still hadn’t realized most of the things the poet had written about. I was also into Rudyard Kipling, and was intrigued by his connections with India (the school I was attending at that time was also purely Indian, planted in Omani soil – very patriotic, I recall).
When I left, I tore out the poem (the diary was more useful recycled) and stuck it into my JournaL (camouflaged to look like a math notebook – very realistic, ‘Cos it was my math notebook – I have about three volumes now; all assorted subjects).
One of my friends said that her grandfather used to read it to her uncle when he was little. Pretty neat.