operation equality

without looking and without knowing,

without reading or without thinking
and certainly without understanding,
you attacked like an idiot.

obrother so innocent,
can communism come like this ?
water in place of land
and land where there is water,
ditch where there is hill
and mountain where there is valley  ---
only by making such radical changes
will there be revolution?

It is none of your business to be a comrade,
you are so sentimental.
leave alone Marx and Mao,
had you even played a little with a tribal boy in Naxalbari school,
you could have done a bit better.

you are becoming anarchist uncontrolled

and burn dry and wet indiscriminately.
you devour good along with bad,
if you break everything  in a frenzy fancy, 
will it make navnirman, the righteous  re-construction?

maybe you can level everything by razing to ground ,
but you can not make every thing equal.
yes, you chose a very auspicious day,
26th January,the republic day of the nation.


the innocent school-children of Anjar

were unfurling the flags of fake

freedom, equality and fraternity;
and you attacked them at random, like an idiot anarchist.

you were so mad with rage

that you could not even set a correct epicenter :
Kutch is a land of saints and  benevolent souls ,
yes, there may be a rare outlaw like Jesal Jadejo too.
o good brother, Delhi or Gandhinagar were so far for you?

yes, you are right:
the times are such that you seethe with anger,

and  would like to break into pieces

the God that had promised to reincarnate

in every age
but has instead turned into stones.

we too have become impatient,

and now intolerant too  :
doing all the drudgery since centuries.
we made them netizens from citizens with our labour
and  we in return are made to wander

as adiwasis and untouchables

but we are humane:
our one eye weeps , when the other is burning red with rage
we do not wish to convert this civilization

 into another Mohenjo-Daro.
like the mad Brahmin Parsuram, 

we do not revenge with bloody revolution,
as we are the followers of Buddha, the compassionate.

now come, and  see the effects of your aftershocks.
and repent like the King of Kalinga.
remember?  no one had turned up

when the cyclonestruck tribalOrissa.
but with their NRI cousins and kinsmen connections
 overseas flights  hover around :
and their white dogs identify

the stench of their corpses before everything else.

rescue- relief- rehabilitation everything occurs here as per
the hierarchy of varnasham order.

government is theirs, swaymsewakasare theirs
for them it is the proverbial feast:

 mother serving the food at the maternal uncle’s home !
and we are the hapless ones!
the rich Swiss tents were taken away by the leaders and officers
pyjamas from Pakistan were taken away

by the chaddi-banian-dharis.
we hardly had a share of a piece of tin or tarpaulin
their vastushastris said
‘as per their caste, allot them the plots.
we were given the wastelands of the village ponds.
come, get early salvation by drowning in them!

o kind but naïve Big Brother Earthquake,
your operation equality has failed.
even if you strike at a Richter scale much higher than this
you will never be able to uproot
this ancient tree of chaturvarni Aryavart .
you may be immensely kind and just,
yet you will not be able to realize
Baba’s dream written in
the preface of our book of constitution.

of course, the crestfallen skyscrapers will never forget,
 those wintry nights lighted by the stars
 under the shadow of fear.

please therefore never strike again
without looking , without  knowing
without reading or without thinking
and certainly without understanding.

(poem inspired by the Gujarat earthquake, 26 January 2001)