Pankaj Sharan is one of my college mates from the Allahabad University (UP, India) and IIT Kanpur (UP, India).  Pankaj and I were room mates during 1965-1967 at the venerable Muir Hostel in Allahabad.

Pankaj is the most talented and creative person I know.  He holds a Ph.D. in physics, he writes poems, he does charcoal drawings, he plays a musical instrument, and he also authors physics textbooks. It has been a privilege to know Pankaj.

Pankaj lives in India (Gurugram, near New Delhi) with his equally talented wife, Basabi.  Their only daughter is a Ph.D. from MIT and works in Silicon Valley.  This is Pankaj’s first contribution to our blog.

Welcome aboard Pankaj.

A Name (Translated into English from Hindi by Pankaj himself)

A bird tweeted it first
Then a breeze whistled it,
On and on.
Under the shadow of a rock
A tiny seedling
Repeated
With folded hands
In the morning prayer.

The Sun heard it
And cosmic rays
Carried it
For thousands of light-years
Spreading, expanding
To other galaxies.

The sound of your name
Scattered and merged
Became imperishable
Within You.

The original Hindi Version

चिड़िया ने कहा
फिर हवाओं ने गाया
शिला के नीचे उगी
नन्ही वनस्पति ने
नित्य प्रात प्रार्थना में
उसको दोहराया

सूरज ने सुना
और अंतरिक्ष किरणों ने
सहस्रों प्रकाश-वर्ष चलकर
आगामी तारक समूहों तक
विस्तृत कराया

नाम था तुम्हारा
तुम्ही में खो गया
शब्द अक्षर हो गया।
(अक्षर = अ + क्षर = अविनाशी, नित्य )