whenever turbulence had engulfed theworld,

and the center of political gravity shifted,

causing quakes and cracks, heads ofnation,

and statesmen had sat down straight,

exchanged pleasantries, all in the nameof d�tente,

that is, easing of tension, that wouldpave the way

for world peace, for the present andfuture generation.

But their efforts had remained futile andillusive,

allowing strife-torn world to seeconflict

as a culture of political sociology,

placing the world at the mercy of nuclearwarfare.

World history is littered with chronicleof wars,

and skeletons of failed resolutions andhopes.

Why is peace slippery and illusive?

He who desires peace, should prepare forwar

is a statement credited to a fourthcentury

Roman statesman.

But the citizens of Czechoslovakia didnot go war

before the two ethnic nationalities

charted their separate ways and remainedin peace.

Wielding of power for dominance

seems to have taken ascendance

over fraternal co-existence.

Unhealthy and deadly competition

have written the obituary

for international cooperation.

Realpolitik has established its reign

over negotiation to obtain

the needs of the have-not nations,

from the have-nations

in a legally justified means,

not through the barrel of the gun,

a system that circumvents,

the tenets of Geneva convention

and international law.

Spy plane hovers over opponent�s airspace

while agenda for world peace

are being discussed.

Sincerity of purpose

has been hijacked by hypocrisy.

The use of crude power

to obtain national interest

has made squalid poverty to reside

in the neighbourhood of superabundance,

and no viable economic theory,

has been put in place,

to balance the poverty gap equation.

Mankind has journeyed to the outer space

but has failed to reach other nations

in a mutually beneficial pattern.

If wisdom and restraint stand aloof,

feel unconcern,

and refuse to husband and tame

the urge of the fingers that pry around

the thermonuclear button,

the combined bloodshed

in first and second world wars

would be a joke or child�s play,

compared with what is in store,

waiting to be unleashed.