Poets

I'm not mine, but someone else's politics. I'm someone else's hidden agenda. By my very being, if someone reaped his well-being That would only be my misfortune. I'm not mine But someone else's name. For a citizenship of Hell I had not made any request But was despatched here On someone else's ticket.

This is one of the rhymes Taught in Shri Guru Gobind Singh Hindi Primary School One of the quavering anthems of olden days sung by those Now addressed as ma-baba-grandma It is someone's idea of fun or pastime, rhythm-non-rhythm-marching-rhythm Oh look, the vermilion-anointed forehead of the Queen is still the same Or to all of history it shows the power of the power game. This is the broad formula of Eastern metaphysics - That everyone has to die one day. Oops! In the rhyme-story invoked at the end, No one among the three died dawdling, they died Doing their work, hup ho! they died fighting their war, bravo! Why isn't there a word like martyr for them - bearing such a placard Was the man who just passed by me, named Swami Varg-Chaitanya Kirti-Akankshi 1008¹ Like our tribal poet, Bhujang Meshram² I too had asked innocently About Sivakasi³ the city that makes firecrackers - Why doesn't its childhood ever go away? The less the IQ, the better the poem would be; life too. I say, wherever you have to live, take retirement from there; In so doing, you'd derive the pleasure of a duplex house :-) Dear me, no! This is not a classroom struggle between Class 1-A and 1-B This struggle is intricate, as cryptic as my class-map. To present anything the way it is, would be against our customs So the way I've come to office in my Bermudas and t-shirt (I warned you this would happen) The same way in this preshentation I päshte A moving song of my middle class, read carefully: The King died in the war he fought The Queen died in the cooking pot The Children died studying a lot . . .

From my body, take earth and sprinkle on barren lands From my body, take water and bestrew the desert with streams From my body, take the sky and build roofs for the homeless From my body, take air and purify the breath of factories From my body, take fire, your heart is frightfully cold