A Fish Out Of Water (Written On 14-04-2000) Poem by Subhojit Kar

What am i doing here?
Among the crooks and the fanatics,
Among merit-harlots, among status-pimps?

What's the fish doing on land?
Among raging bulls and clever foxes
Among coupling snakes, among barking dogs
Among sly hunting fish-loving cats?
The lone fish struggles furiously,
Beating about its fins- -
Just a gulp of air please
Just ankle-deep water please.

Files and PCs and incessant phone-rings
Talk, talk, talk
Beeps and burrs and whizzes and sneezes
Sounds, sounds- -
The Sound Monster,
Irritating, cancerous, banal!
Rape of the spirit
And torture of the soul!

Books, music, films- -
Only vanishing fragrances
Of flowers with long-forgotten names.

Fish, fish, no-one can save you, but yourself
No one will give you magic wings to fly
Grovel, grovel in the dirt-
Your programmed fate
Till...
Till you can drag yourself along
(It may hurt, it may bleed or burn)
To the nearest pond or lake
Hoodwink the angling rod and the net
And swim in the bosom of the setting sun
(While dreaming of a clear silver moonrise)
Turning the mud-green water
Orange and yellow
And purple and red.