Bharot

As was Godot; as is India
As it is all the time
Just as Pakistan and just as China,
And no more does anything rhyme.

Newspapers say after demonetisation
India has now become Bharot
The name my grandmother had with a Bengali diction
She did see things beyond her eyeshot.

Tho’ she was already 80
Perhaps she knew how Bharot is, is, for real
As is war, as is military and as is military as it is
As it comes in hunter green and with extendable steel

It is evident
When in foothills hundreds of folks are dying
There’s no settlement,
It seems nobody knows nothing

But that’s not the end of the story;
Bharot will never know
There are things like impotency
Just as it was, several empires ago.

Now there’s no hope
Except for some fictional political absurdity
We need no microscope or telescope
For this Bharot or Indian thingy

We have a popular story:
Of a monkey distributing chapati;
India is the monkey
Bharot is the copy

People say they have learnt it from England
And it seems it’s fine
As long as it is coming from the high command
And I heard it from the grapevine

Our race is on our face

But you will not even hear the wailing
Across the vales and the hills in such disgrace
You need not be caring, empathizing

Now are you India or Bharot?

And always have we been waiting.