The National Anthem

The national anthem
is a nice song
recited with pride
and thrilling gong
the glorious nation
its expansive stance.
But the national anthem
fares poor
its unable to arouse
the filthy ears
stupid folks stooped in misery
living a life
thats daily drudgery
beating rape and shit
of course thats not all gloomy
as i say
they too love music
and respond more
to Bombay's thrill and ding-dong
The national anthem is nice
but a poor song.
-LP
(this poem is not meant to dishonour Tagore.But its ironical that a person who was always suspicious of nationalism as an ideology his poem was selected to epitomize the same!)

Questions to a metal

Suppose
one day
early in the morning
Moon knocks your door
and asks
'did the moon light
glittering last night
soothe your soul?'

Suppose one day
while you are crossing a busy lane
soot and dust smearing your collar
a Flower springs up
and asks you
'isn't my gentle fragrance better than this-
did you enjoy it last sunday in the park
kissing your beloved
didn't you feel me deep somewhere
inside you?'

Suppose one day
you busy in your office
cramped in piles
of data and files
a cuckoo comes
'I woke you yesterday
when your alarm didn't work
wasn't it sweet?'

You will think I have gone crazy
the moon , the flower, the cuckoo
shall never ask
how much we love them
or betray.

But
I have a question to ask
I ask
the
hard, tough, heavy metallic bullet
Were you hurt
when you got hit on a man's living flesh?
Were there any painful scratches when
piercing the head you sped?
Squeezed inside the dead lump
blood clotted around
did you feel suffocated?
Do you remember the hands which fired you?
(they might have got their share back!)
Can you distinguish between
the hands which fired you and
the hands which scratched you up from mud and earth?

The moon, the flower, the cuckoo
will never ask a question.
But I ask you questions
O heavy metal:
Would you refuse?

-LP

Advise to unemployed youth

Nothing matches a government job
security, stability and a fixed income
and even much more that depends
on your capacity to scratch
and a post to match.

Civil services is the best you can have
if can't be a doctor or an engineer or
a petty 'babu' for lesser soul's not bad.
An IIM degree's another golden catch
great packages- forget recession
market's back to glorious days.

Don't waste your mind on silly themes
the world is now as always has been
romancing dreams should be secondary flavour
first comes your future
A bright career is the best thing
you can offer the world, after all
charity begins at home my dear!
-LP

MY DREAM

i have always dreamt
one day
my words will become a spark.
i have always dreamt
one day
my words will have sharp edge
i have always dreamt
one day
my words will make you stand
i have always dreamt
one day
my words will hear you speaking
i have always dreamt
one day
our words will be CONVICTION
not convenience!
i have always dreamt....

-LP

poem

Without exile, who am I?

-MAHMOUD DARVISH

Stranger on the bank, like the river . . . tied up to your

name by water. Nothing will bring me back from my free

distance to my palm tree: not peace, nor war. Nothing

will inscribe me in the Book of Testaments. Nothing,

nothing glints off the shore of ebb and flow, between

the Tigris and the Nile. Nothing

gets me off the chariots of Pharaoh. Nothing

carries me for a while, or makes me carry an idea: not

promises, nor nostalgia. What am I to do, then? What

am I to do without exile, without a long night

staring at the water?

Tied up

to your name

by water . . .

Nothing takes me away from the butterfly of my dreams

back into my present: not earth, nor fire. What

am I to do, then, without the roses of Samarkand? What

am I to do in a square that burnishes the chanters with

moon-shaped stones? Lighter we both have

become, like our homes in the distant winds. We have

both become friends with the clouds'

strange creatures; outside the reach of the gravity

of the Land of Identity. What are we to do, then . . . What

are we to do without exile, without a long night

staring at the water?

Tied up

to your name

by water . . .

Nothing's left of me except for you; nothing's left of you

except for me -- a stranger caressing his lover's thigh: O

my stranger! What are we to do with what's left for us

of the stillness, of the siesta that separates legend from legend?

Nothing will carry us: not the road, nor home.

Was this road the same from the start,

or did our dreams find a mare among the horses

of the Mongols on the hill, and trade us off?

And what are we to do, then?

What

are we to do

without

exile?

Translated by Anton Shammas from 'The Bed of the Stranger', Riad El-Rayyes Books, Beirut, 1999.

The Land Of Lakshmi

Its DIWALI today. As the sun sets in the western sky and the begins spreading it arms all around slowly the age old procession of lighting lamps will begin. Little lights twinkling in the face of darkness. A great metaphor indeed for the relentless human struggle against darkness within and without. But the metaphor does not ends here. As India proceeds to acquire the status of a superpower among the great fraternity of civilised nations with free markets in one hand and nuclear bomb in the other Diwali too is witnessing a metamorphic mutation. The flirting lights , the sparkling crackers, the glittering dresses , the dazzling markets....all these have become the new metaphors of diwali. A metaphor of India shining in a sea of dinge. The anti-avatar of Lakshmi in a new age for a new country in awe of its newly discovered greatness...'india unbound' as they say!

SCIENCE AND NATIONALISM

Why do we value science?A very innocent answer, and in all probability the best answer ought to be , is that science has shown infinite possibility to improve the lot of humanity. I think this to be true in many ways. NOT only the technical innovations that eased our life but also science as a thought process has brought to fore novel ways of thinking about philosophical and ethical problems.
However my concern here is not the school-book topic of 'boons and banes of science'. Iam thinking about how science or to be precise scientific developments become a mode of venting euphoric emotions of national pride and nationalism?very recently we saw this in Iran which made a public show of its newly developed satellite carrier. And this is not a stand alone case . In India we saw Chandrayaan mission or nuclear bombs used as symbols of 'national pride' more than their actual or probable potential to contribute to betterment of the people of this nation! Even in holywood films we see unworldly scientific stuff used to show the scientific prowess and hence the inescapable superiority of US.
So what is the connection between science and nationalism , if any?
One common denominator which springs in mind is POWER. Nationalism is the ideology of modern nation-state. To assert itself as a nation the state seeks power. The ideology of nationalism legitimises this power. Such a legitimacy is important for the political ruling classes to sustain thier claim of ruling on behalf of or for the people. Science comes handy in assertion of national power because scientific inventions are itself an important source of power..
(more on this later...)