“Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters....we are selfish men;
O raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.”—William Wordsworth
When you died, without notice, fromA heavy heart, I was twenty three, butCried all day long, uncontrollably.It felt as though our umbilical cordHad been severed from that infinitelyCaring , infinitely daring, infinitelyChildlike god who had steered a rivenShip full of chaos, cacophony, woe—A babble of skins, syllables, ritualsCaverns of fear-ridden ignorance,Hate-filled hunger, and suspicionOf what we did not know, whichWas indeed head to toe—So adroitly,— resolute in love, sureIn reason, all-embracing in clasp,—That the vessel , guaranteedTo sink into smithereens, steadied,Cleaved, charted a course yielding,Without force, a common routeTo a common fate, neither rampantNor flamboyant, but erect in gate.You left, beloved of us all, andOf an admiring world, and soonWe came into our own. This is notEnough, some said; dismantleNow this socialist rot, and let the richBe richer and the others striveIn their poverty to merit our company.For decades you have been a memoryEven to your own, secretly, of what hasKept us from those animal spirits which aloneCan bloat what was a common arkTo the size of a battle ship, readyTo embark on conquering the world,Even as we poison the earth, air, waterAround us to make demons of humans,Armed with lolling avarice and righteousIntolerance, vanquishing mere kindness, andThe timidity of peace. Our treasury growsAs we shrink into munching midgetsAnd mechanical mannequins, repleteWith silliness, vacuity, aggression, and pose,All stridently garnished with religion and noise.Jawahar that you truly were, our gemsNow are made from synthetic things.The least trinket with a brand doesThe highest price command. In suchA Bharat may be even you could not haveDone much. You taught us to be globalIn the best human ways; our globalizationAfter you is a branded craze for thinginessesThat have flattened our souls into dresses,And filled our skulls with buying and sellingTo the accompaniment of twittered yelling.To them who can neither buy nor sellWe simply say there is heaven and there is hell,And never the two may gel. You willNot pull us down, and we will not pullYou up; be you green or dark, andSpeaking out of turn, beware of the tridentThat bears the blazing fury of saffron.There we have arrived, O noble one,Best gone, where you never failed to warn.May be the catastrophe will impel usTo return to the riches of reason you soStrenuously taught us to learn.May be the tear that now drips downMy cheek is harbinger of that churn.
May 27, 2014 Badri Raina