PM, PONDER

When I see simple folks toiling away at their posts in life, I feel humbled by their innocence and wonder why God in all His wisdom allows crooked, corrupt politicians and businessmen to ruin the course of these minstrels of the Lord, they who yet sing paeans of praise in His honour, although, they stand denuded, despoiled of all that is worthwhile holding in life to lead a decent terrestrial existence. Yet, these are the salt of the earth, the sum and substance of all that is worthwhile in the name of humanity, the harbingers of hope of a new era of social equality, the builders of civilisations through aeons past, now buried in the sands of time.

These toilers in the mines unearthing the gems they wear not, these tillers of the soil they call their mother, these workmen who shed their life's blood to reap the harvest of their labour for their mercenary masters, is there no end to their fruitless festivity on earth? Must they suffer eternally at the hands of the cunning and the crafty, the mighty and the malevolent, the tyranny of the ages crushing them ever under the wheels of the social machine? Is there a benevolent God somewhere who hears their piteous cries for redemption, for justice, for deliverance of their bodies and not merely their souls by pious prescription or archaic articulation?

The heart breaks to see the human body broken, the human heart ravaged, the human soul famished of all that is good and beautiful merely because the unceasing appetite of the billionaire barons of the day must be appeased. Billions must die a daily death so that a billionaire may float in his private yacht or his spouse celebrate her advent on earth in a manner that would put emperors to shame. And where does the money come from for all this pomp and show? Why man, from the pockets of the poor who know not how they are pilfered off their meagre means of livelihood in the name of well-meaning developmental profit-making by the mercenaries among men, the messiahs of mankind, the Machiavellis of this material civilisation! What pleasures are being partaken of by the profiteers that are not at the expense of the poor? What luxuries are the politicians wallowing in that are not derived from the life-blood of the very people they represent? What greatness are we vaunting of our hoary spiritual culture when a billion goddesses and gods are living lives of servitude to their capitalist masters, and why, to their political masters as well?

Shame on our politicians, men of little conception and even less character, that a billion-strong population, veritable divinities on earth, should so suffer even after seven decades of independence, recipients of universal franchise and universal susceptibility to crafty manipulation by men at the helm of affairs that the country is careering to God-knows-where with a proliferating population and an ever-widening rift between the contra-disposed classes of the economic bubble that needs must burst in the fullness of time to redress the balance lost to the masses for ages!

Then shall come retribution, a violent revolution may sweep the expanse of the punyabhumi (holy land) to restore the rights of man. Lest such a day befalls the soil trodden by the rishis, politicians beware! The wrath of the people no power on earth can resist. Seek good counsel while yet there is time and reform yourselves, else, destiny demands the liberation of the masses from the thraldom of this nefarious nexus between the politician and his patron, the gluttonous, self-serving, crony capitalist. Beware businessmen! the footfall of the future is beckoning for a different deal. Jai Hind!