I Don’t Need No Rocking Chair: Just Yet

By K.B. Chandra Raj

K.B. Chandra Raj was born and raised in Malaysia with firm roots in Sri Lanka (once known as Serendib and later Ceylon) is an accountant by training. He served a five-year period of articles with the prestigious firm of chartered accountants, Turquand Youngs and Company and has worked as chief accountant in Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone as Accountant General, Liberia and the United States of America.
Chandra and his wife Siva have been blessed with two loving grandchildren – granddaughter Neela Chandraraj and grandson Deeran Vermeij.
He presently lives in tranquil retirement with his wife Siva in Hamden, Connecticut, U.S.A.
His seven previous publications:
1. For the Love of Shakespeare
2. Your Sense of Humor – Don’t Leave Home Without It
3. Mining my own life
4. Reminiscing in tranquility of a time long gone by
5. Itty Bitty Tiny Tall Tales
6. Rhyme to Pass the Time
7. Poems Please

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Oct 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781698712802

K.B. Chandra Raj

K.B. Chandra Raj was born and raised in Malaysia. He was trained as an accountant and worked in that field before retiring. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1985. Chandra Raj and his wife, Siva, have two grown children and two grandchildren and live in Hamden, Connecticut. He is also the author of For the love of Shakespeare, Your sense of humor—Don’t leave home without it, Mining my own life, and Reminiscing in tranquility of a time long gone by.

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Contents

Introduction

Poetry

On Aging by Maya Angelou

Age versus Youth

1. Crossing the Bar

2. What goes faster every time I turn around

3. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

4. On A Fly Drinking Out of His Cup

5. Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)

6. Antony and Cleopatra (Act 2, Scene 2)

7. For the Fallen

8. Let Me Grow Lovely

9. Evening Pastimes

10. Cymbeline (Act 4, Scene 2)

11. Sonnet 66

12. Nature

13. When I see the young men at play

14. Growing Old

15. To His Coy Mistress

16. Forgetting to Remember

17. That’s Not Me

18. Long Ago

19. Let Me But Live

20. The Last Leaf

21. Growing Old

22. Old And Young

23. Age Is Opportunity

24. Even Such is Time

25. Father William

26. Fat Lie

27. King Lear (Act 4, Scene 7)

28. All the World’s a Stage from

29. I look into my glass

30. Death, be not proud

31. On Himself

32. Sound, Sound the Clarion

33. The Old Man’s Complaints. And how he gained them

34. Written in a Carefree Mood

35. Parody based on My Favorite Things from Sound of Music

Some Parting Thoughts

This book is dedicated to: THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

From the cosey comfort of an arm chair, cool in sultry summers, toasty and snug during frosty winters, at the public libraries in Colombo (Sri Lanka), Shelton and Hamden (U.S.A.) I have wet my feet in the holy waters of the Ganges, witnessed Moses crossing the Red Sea, listened to Marc Antony’s oratorical bombast, Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your ears, watched Saint Teresa work her heart out in the slums of Calcutta, accompanied Edmund Hilary and Tensing Norgay on their ascent of Mount Everest and much more too numerous to enumerate.

In all my peregrinations across continents whenever I saw the words Public Library plastered on a building, like a duck to water I was attracted to it. A safe place where I was certain to read, relax, and ruminate.

All this with a plastic card given to me at no charge.

All the public library requested of me was just this: while you are in the library keep your mind open and your mouth shut.

My Salaams to Doug Hawthorne

Once more unto the breach pal, once more.

Thank you for readily undertaking once again the prosy tedious task of editing my work.

It has come out of the wash clean and meaningful.

Introduction

I was young once, confident, participated actively in sports -- cricket, soccer, badminton, table tennis – I carried away prizes. By my own measure, successful.

I am now 87 tremulously looking forward to 88 and beyond, what I would describe as the waning days of my life. Growing old means seeing our place on earth shrink bit by bit and watching our shadows begin to shrivel. It means in the end we will vanish completely. With age comes a growing thoughtfulness: what was it all for? What have we made of our lives, and how do we come to terms with our going?

As in the case of Tolstoy’s classic, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, toward the end of Ilyich’s life, ambition and vanity disappear and priorities change. Like Ivan Ilyich I too look forward to comfort and companionship.

Learning new things or remembering familiar words have become daunting. The things I used to do with ease now require effort and it is by no means getting better. I walk more slowly than I used to. I have to be more attentive to where I’m putting my feet lest a momentary imbalance pitch me into a