The reticent Sardar finally speaks from the pulpit of an absolute monarch’s magnificence in Stone;
Proclaims of having fulfilled “India’s tryst with Destiny”;
The Wheel of ‘Dhamma’ turns a full circle;
A Nation born in crisis at Midnight arrives at an Identity Crisis;
Minorities, nationalities and individuals all aspire for an Identity makeover.
What a wonderful sojourn have we made in three score a years;
Travelled from an ‘Area of Darkness’ to a ‘Land of Million Mutinies’;
The Sardar and his cronies proclaim India as land of Gold and Honey;
The bottomless pit of grinding poverty cries out;
“We are a land of malnourished children; of foeticiders, witch-hunters and bride-burners”;
The Madam and her Yes Prime Minister cry out, ‘Treachery Most Foul’
They brand the dissenters as ‘Traitors’ and ‘Maoists’;
Gandhian apostles muzzle all dissent with a little help from our UN friends.
Suddenly, the pygmy-sized ex-army-man bursts on centre-stage;
He is a Gandhian reincarnation of modern times;
The pride and power of a nondescript village;
Now, the centre-stage of ‘Sunday Times’.
The Fakir from Ralegaon thunders and speaks;
launches a tirade against ill-gotten greed;
Men, women and children cry out aloud–He is the pied-piper to save India out anew;
The pests this time are our Nation’s Infamy–men and women who represent our secular democracy.
These law-breakers and law-makers serene pick up Anna’s gauntlet with some unease;
They try to play by ’Divide and Rule’; verily they are Macaulay’s brood;
Aruna’s bill is thrown in between the Nation and Hazare’s dream,
A dream envisaging an all encompassing ombudsman as the conscience-keeper of our truant nation;
I hope this is not Cinderella’s dream.
