Are you a saint or a super politician?
He was asked once by
A learned professor,
Who had also suffered like him
In the distant past.
Although they can’t be described
As close friends,
They are more than mere colleagues.
Especially the person who was
Asked this question,
Has an inexplicable admiration
For the scholarship of another gentleman
And his voracious reading
Habit and appetite,inclusive of writing style
Which anyone could envy rightly.
This intellectual warmth and
Collective suffering of the past
Have also kept them in good stead
Despite their ideological differences
And one unforgettable Tsunami,
Experienced unexpectedly like a bolt from the blue.
Going back to the question,
He replied :
‘Professor, you are thoroughly wrong
I am neither a saint nor a sinner
The truth is I am just human
In this dehumanized , globalized world
I want to be a better human
In doing a little to fellow human;
Fully aware of my brief stay here
Any act of little kindness,
Warmth and respect that I can show,
I want to do it now.
There is no politics built into it.
I have learnt from Kural:
Which you have always treated ,
As a matter of no consequence
By not attaching any importance at all.
Perhaps reinventing identity politics there too
And yet I will translate that Kural .
The best way to punish a
Wrong doer is, the saying of the Kural goes,
Is to do something good
In order that
He will feel ashamed of himself.
I know the gentleman in question
And many gentlemen whom we have to come across in life
That list will grow in the years to come,
Given the chaotic nature of the society
Will not have any sense of shame
And no moral fiber to cloth their physical frame.
That’s not my concern
If they don’t want
Any solution, its their problem
If they don’t want to be a part of the solution
And be a perpetual problem to others
Even then ,
Let me do something good as much as I can
Unmindful of suffering
Caused to me,
As I cannot change my nature
Derived from the parental genes.
But then, your statement
About super politician, I am sorry.
My good intentioned attitude, and
Good intentioned behavior and action
Must not seduce you,
Should not blind you to dream and
Conceive that kind of frame
Even in your wildest dream
For I wouldn’t appear even as a
First rate politician in your wildest dream.
Don’t say the days of
Thirukural are gone, once and for all .
Will pay in the short run
Or who knows, in the long run too,
In all places of Marketized environiment,
The poisonous air of destructive politics
Might undermine the
True economic activities.
But independent of that,
Rural India, Youth India,
And Women India will get empowered.
We shall pray for that day of freedom,
Real freedom for the Disadvantaged.
We shall not be alive
To see that favorable outcome.
Hardworking people will strive and work hard
For wages of their labor and sell their
Honestly stored energy.
We shall remain optimistic
And remember the slogan
From Wall Street Journal
“Politics will divide and Economics will unite”
1 comment:
I liked this piece as I am somewhere in this poem. Or ma I not?
Post a Comment