Democracy India

I wrote this, heavily inspired by Leonard Cohen's 'Democracy'. Written as a reaction to recent hope and turmoil in the nation.

It’s coming through a late night share

on twitter, facebook and foursquare

It’s coming on the newsreel

colored with a saviour’s zeal

It’s coming right knocking on the door

in the form of welfare taxes to pay for

in the form of state sponsored meal

and in the form of an employment deal

It’s watching you, every second you exist

protect it must, says it, us from all the ists

It’s here in the laws that dictate

who you can love, and who you can hate

that before marriage, do not fornicate

It’s here in the judgements

delivered by men of law and the lathi

executed by those in the dhoti and khaki

on behavior and length of the garments

It’s democracy, everyone has a say

It is coming through the holes underground

from which fires and the metals originate

fuelling wealth, war, hope and despair

It is passing through the high rises

where the dreams and net worths sway

It is travelling in the deep forests

where bamboo totting tribals agitate

alongwith those who say

let’s start again, with a clean slate

Democracy is, after all, not a classless state

It is built on the expensive real estate

near walled gardens and the 6-lane highways

Also in the SEZs and factories red-taped

It is distributed with licenses, real and faked

for liquor, lives and spectral waves

It feeds on pre-election free giveaways

waivers, subsidies and other vote bank dole

thrown down the gaping fiscal hole

It’s Democracy, everybody enjoys equally

and some sucker will pay, eventually

It has its own holymen and the gods

made-up messiahs on the pulpits high

pregnant with promises of equality and liberty

from the evil clutches of priesthood and property,

Or maybe, it’s just another ponzi scheme

just another actor, in the long running theme

but vote them up and vote them more

and just hope, they are somewhat better

than those who came before

Celebrate, it is now entrenched well

in the forgotten ghettos, where minorities dwell

in the secular spaces, where castes meet

in noisy screens, where celebrities tweet

in the concerns and anxieties of the swelling horde

uninterrupted, painted daily on an Amul billboard

They doubted first, if here, it would stay

but the founding fathers, otherwise they believed

it is here that we have the disparity

and the much celebrated diversity

the fertile salad bowl for democracy

they knew, everyone will realize, the mockery

why pick up a gun, to start afresh

when a vote gets you, your pound of flesh

I am not fundamental, but concerned at the scene

this SMS pied-piper march to a burial site

behind a love-all, serve-all smokescreen

But I will catch the news later tonight

to check if some things are left,

and if someone is right

and hope, that good intentions

do not pave this road straight

Meanwhile, you!

hold this mike and discuss the growth rate

It’s a party! big, fat and great