The Empire Peddles Back

When you came Bible-peddling,

I was not numero uno;

Now that I am, take back with

Interest wages for that meddling,

As a hundred and seventy nations

Back my awesome, acrobatic show.

Watch the thrusting of my leg,

Chest inflated, arms akimbo,

Fire in my eye, beard aflame,

Heart raging with dream

Of conquest, mind intent on

Weeding out all such element

That questions my abhiyan,

Kicking up an anti-national row.

Espy these legions of health,

Backed by bushel-fulls of wealth,

Retreat, and never again dare

Come anywhere near Delhi,

Lucknow, Jhansi, Agra,

For Nagpur now insures Bharat

With a prowess that will

Not spare your imperial belly.

Be warned: as I gyrate, twist, unwind,

There is nothing spiritual on my mind.

Our grand army of NRI Ninjas

Is enough to subdue your cool

To contortions you never knew.

And political dividends better follow,

Such as your rotten dollar and Euro

Without let, hindrance, delays

To fuel my smart-city-make-in-India craze.

Should you do that without demur,

We will not break another church door.

Anti-Hindu carpers at home

Will no doubt carry on their moan.

But worry not, take a hint

From what the discarded patriarch

Has said: if need be, we will enforce

Our right to Emergency. In fact

Are we not already there,

Wilthout declaration or fanfare?

Note that when our patriarch

Be unduly grim, we do listen to him.

We may jail even those who fail

Us internationally, given that our

Vikas rate now self-evidently shames

Many a so-called advanced state. As

To poverty and the poor, we

Will leave that bother to those who

Better undertake such chore;

After all, what are the Congress

And the Left parties for? As we

Yog to golden blasts of growth,

Poverty gives them something to do.

Thus wily old Disraeli's two nations

Remain distinct, disparate, true.

So, let Yog be the thin end of

The wedge that makes the white

Macaulay brown, and yields

Many a manufacturing town,

That teaches the swaggering Brit

To quit his tainted English for

The profound beauties of Sanskrit—

Minus, of course, the naughty things

Therein, which apocryphal incursions

Owe to the conquering Saracen.

Such embarrassments as Kama Sutra,

Kumar Sambhava, Mrichhikatakam, or

Mudra Rakhshasa, and other things

Of that ilk, mere evidences of hacking

Long before the computer was a-making.

We mean the Sanskrit of the gods

Alone, not of men who actually

Used their human penchant, quill, or pen.

All that of course, our learned ones

Shall impart with a fee, as Bharat

Will rise and the west go under

The sea. Such is the meaning

Of Yog, such is our ineluctable fantasy.

Now gyrate, gyrate, do not miss

The bus; even Wall Street knows

The twentyfirst century belongs to us.

So do thine Yog without snooty fuss.

BADRI RAINA