“Following up on yesterday’s love poem, I have for you another deceptively simple challenge. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about a very large thing. It could be a mountain or a blue whale or a skyscraper or a planet or the various contenders for the honour of being the Biggest Ball of Twine. Whatever giant thing you choose, I hope this chance to versify in praise of the huge gets your poetic engines humming.’
My poem for the day – The sleeping giant
On a warm, summer's day What a drill it was to climb up the hill to see the metallic dragon. There it lay on a two-wheeled carriage A behemoth of a creature languishing in the sun awaiting its salvation. An existential crisis- the sleeping giant, had never been called to action since the day he was born! What good is it being a cannon with the longest snout and the widest mouth If it hasn't ever breathed fire?
Deemed to be the world’s largest and most deadliest cannon, ‘Jaivana’ has a 29 ft long barrel and weighs 50 tonnes. An interesting fact about the cannon is that it was made in the 18th century to protect the State from invaders. The cannon was used once to test its capability and it resulted in creating a depression on the land which is now a lake. To read more about it, you can click here.
I saw the cannon during our recent holiday to Rajasthan in January, this year. The prompt provided the perfect opportunity to talk about something that may be a humongous waste it does not receive attention.
To read about our trip to Rajasthan, you can click here.
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