How Did They?

How, how did they come to feel it, view it then, How the villagerly rustics and the uncouth people, The countrified folks speaking vernaculars, Provoking them, instigating with inflammatory statements And they committing suicides, self-immolations, Did it suit them morally! O, talk you not about the sense of morality, They are not at all the literate people, They are the blunt men, The rough and tough fellows, Living in villages, Backward, underdeveloped and impoverished! Had they the sense of morality, and ethics, They would not have troubled somebody’s feelings In such a way, Had they, they would not have hurt in such a way, The blunt and bogus men of Indian politics! A democracy of the fools, by the fools and for the fools, The stuntmen as politicians, Rural and uncouth, Foolish and illiterate, Just not with the tikki and the tikka now, Without the pagadi and the linen towel! They are the same persons, The same people, But not with the clamp of hair hanging from the crown of the head, The turban around the head, The thin towel on the shoulders And a lathi in the hands. Actually, the clamp of hair was for some other scholarly purpose And Brahminical thinking, The turban as for protection from sunlight and covering and prestige too, The towel as for to bring in or wipe out the face and mouth, The lathi to save from the wild animals, But they grew up otherwise, The pistolmen, lathimen and the blunt men, All going to be leaders, the makers of Indian democracy. The backwards of politics did they politics as for bargaining power, Coming into power, As for sitting on the chair, Trying to divide between Backward India and Forward India, Marking self-immolations, The young and unemployed boys and girls in fire, Setting themselves on fire by pouring over kerosene. The small-small countryside men With the olden, age-old clothes, Century-old, somehow given or collected coats And wearing those abandoned, outmoded clothes clothes, Planning to go to the assembly house and the Parliament house. The bullock cart stationed near the halt to take him back And the cartman waiting to take him away To the native village Wherefrom is he, a son of the soil, A rustic, a native As a politician, Whom the townsmen saluting And he saying it, It’s my style. And if this could be, how could they be as such inhuman, Immoral and unethical and unsocial That they would see the youths, Simple and jobless, Committing suicides in public places, If this can be as such! And how can it be that the topiwallah Sitting on chair And calling himself a Buddha, But ridiculous it is to compare As the Buddha had not been as such, He was Peace, Peace Divine, Peace Befitting! Oh, the illiterate and foolish folks from the countryside, Marching towards, getting their luggages and bundles packed As for going to the house, Oh, the Indian fools and blockheads, Dullards and rustics as leaders Of the People’s Government, Seeing the self-immolation of the jobless and unemployed youths As the idiots, but how can man be cruel as such, viewing tearlessly!