That's my place, Sir.
[Newly fashioned. I'm overwhelmed!]
There
In the long, weary queues
Waiting patiently
On aching, creaking feet
Moving inch by painful inch
For a blushing, pink piece of paper
[that can't buy me a day's vegetable].
I've been made to line up all my life.
Before the factories,
before being admitted for the day's work.
Before hospitals,
getting sick on feet to cure sickness.
Before ration shops for a pint of kerosene.
That's my place, Sir.
This country is great.
I live in ghettos of charged life.
Our schools are not your children's schools, Sir.
Our hospitals are not your hospitals.
Your culture and corruption can't be ours!
They toss bundles of new currency notes
At you across the queues of bedraggled faces.
We are told that banks have no cash.
“Go back to your hunger and misery.”
That's when the rear doors open
And money flows into rich man's hands.
That's my place, Sir.
It has been so, and it will remain so.
This time it is the devotees of
Of Prabhu Ramchandra (who ate berries from Shabari's hands)
Who have come to show us our worth.
They call it our democratic right.
Or God's verdict
Or simply, “Thy Destiny”.
“Chant my name, fools, chant my name, and forget all else.”
Thundered the Oracle
Namo, Namo!
—Sharad Rajimwale