I don't see no stars in her eyes: A parody on Arundhati Roy
By Manu Kant
twinkle twinkle little star ...how I wonder how I twinkle
twinkle twinkle don't read in between the lines
look at my face
look at my smile
see my nosepin
its twinkle on the outside
the passion inside
that says all
about my seriousness
about my fiery intellect
that I am not someone apart from you
when push comes to shove
& I hear the mid-night knock
it won't be worker, peasant, adivasi
to them I am a nobody
or maybe an English speaking nun
whatever...
they are after all just a fodder
to whom I try to bring civilized order
but the civil society
weaned on my pen's nib
it would be you
my middle-class background
my middle-class neighbourhood
MY CLASS
the fact I never read Marx
that Lenin is absent from my cabinet
what?
never knew who was Stalin
say it again
oh Hitler - the saviour
no?
huh, you mean Stalin the murderer
all this
all that
& much unsaid
eventually would save the day
twinkle twinkle little star
how I wonder how I twinkle
up above in the Hindu sky
up above in the Maoist sky
up above in all the skies
I am the mother of all the measures
I am the darling of this & that
my this thing
my that thing
my little thing
twinkles like a diamond all the way
twinkle twinkle
didn't you know
I was a conjurer
I have something up my sleeve
or hidden maybe in my vintage updo
what after democracy?
what else?
didn't you get it
more democracy
American style
Guantanamo Bay
Abu Gharib
Arundhati Roy in What Have We Done to Democracy?
"While we're still arguing about whether there's life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By "democracy" I don't mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are."
Further she writes: "It isn't meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It's meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy--too much representation, too little democracy--needs some structural adjustment."
so, old Marxist ideologies
are truly burried & dead
just need a little structural readjustment
in India
in Bharatmata
twinkle twinkle make no mistake I am not RED
why I promote Maoists
use your brain pumpkin head
I won't ever tell
though I fully endorse
whole heartedly market
Maoists' kill n Loo policy
(a quarterly call to the Indian govt. for table talks)
as if there is a thing called
NEGOTIATED REVOLUTION
cause I have placed a bet
I get a commission
my payroll
on the heads that roll
it is just so much fun
a great profession
no need for chess
no need for stratagem
twinkle twinkle little star... how I wonder when I turned into a star
only yesterday I was mommy's pretty dame
a standard middle-class Indian girl
doing my lessons, learning to be a professional
mixing with Rohans & Rohits of my neighbourhood
twinkle twinkle little star... how I wonder when Arundhati Roy
started going out with Delhi's prickly beards
jhola on the moda...
mod itself
the jhola
& the mod of the tilt of her moda
its nakhra
its andaaz
twinkle twinkle
all the way
my little diamond star
