India — 2015

More than the menace of a Monsoon

Cloud now stalks the land.

Unrelenting stabs of imbecile assertion

Maul the body politic as newborn

Titans roll their sleeves and

Bare their fangs against

A republic whose slovenly habits

Of accomodation rebuke

The loud muscle of oppressive swagger.

The command is out: let every

Flower in the realm henceforth

Take on but one shape, size, and

Colour, or be deemed a trojan horse,

Rather than a rose or a carnation,

Asking to be decapitated root

And branch, stem and petal as

Dangerous to the nation Let

Every man, woman, child, learn but

One lesson, and write it upon the

Brow, or else prepare to be taught

Just how. Let but one voice be ,

Heeded, however grating and hollow,

Speaking of trivia and thin air,

While weightier matter hang fire.

And whoever tire of that harangue,

Muttered in street-smart twang,

Shall put in jeopardy home and hearth,,

And be declared of dubious worth.

Myriad voices of common concern

May whisper the plight of reason,

The single-minded Cyclops’ eye

Watches with giant smirk

Their suspicious faces of treason.

Many mutinies gather, nevertheless,

Hoping to build barricades that

No Fascios may breach. But,

Nothing for now seems beyond

The reach of masterful bullying

Masking masterful greed; a newly

Mindted breed of beneficiaries

Ensure that the channels spew

The rout of justice and fairplay,

Making the way smooth and spry

For the well-heeled and noisy lie.

Yet, the more that they gather in,

The more things fall apart. What

Has been tried before may not

Sustain beyond a pyrrhic day;

The rich may like top-down tyranny,

But India’s countless hoi polloi—

They are something else again,

And cussedly make their own way.

Badri Raina