Take Daru And Call Yourself A Hero If Not Of The Bombay Theatre Then Of The Local Theatre Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Spend a bit and get intoxicated too much,
Low budget, but too much intoxication
And without taking it, you cannot play the role
Of a hero,
I mean an Indian hero

First class wine not, not even second class,
But third class daru for
The third class men,
Who taking and lying fallen on the roads,
Asleep, not within

And after coming to sense, talking with the stray dogs
In capers
And they hearing him
With the wagging of a tail,
Appreciating him
For the entertainment

But the loss is his, of his family, the net loss,
Not on credit, but in cash,
The family members prohibiting him to take daru
Bu the daru men giving him on credit stealthily
And the friends coming to call him.

Daru, Indian daru, intoxication guaranteed
But believe it not,
You may stay here or go there,
Look heaven wards,
Praying to God,
Save me this time, never again

But if survive you, I know it, you would again
As cannot leave it,
Cannot without it
And it is your impulse and instinct,
Your life and living,
Rotten rice brewed or mahua buds made.

Here in the shanty, the roadside ale shops,
Take you daru,
Run with the bottle with the friends,
Drink and dance
And quarrel
And the poor black bar tender woman
Hearing all that

And she too drunk, as per profession, family culture or tradition
Or poverty or to support the family,
But the big theatre people,
I mean the Bombayans imitating the foreigners after seeing them
At the seashore and the airport,
Trying to take whisky, rum, beer, brandy
And Russian vodka

All those theatre men looking good, good from their outside,
But bad-bad, very bad men
Drinking and partying at the bar,
Making the educated bar-tender-cum-dancers,
Promising of probable roles and camera flashlights.

Hence, daru piyo, drink daru, take it and be a hero,
Make the heroine too drink
And take the scenes
To be shown into the trailer of the coming film,
You drunk, I drunk
I mean both of us
And singing a song by the rivulet
Flowing in between the hills.

The hero a daru man, the heroine a daru man,
Both of them drinking,
Both of them from the countryside,
Rural, aboriginal and tribal,
But jovial and countrified.

The bigger theatre hero a beer man, I mean,
Takes he beer, brandy, rum,
Hence, may call him
A brandy man, a rum man too
As comes he not with the bottles, but takes them of course,
Not a seller but a taker of those.

And after having taken, partying with the company men,
The director, the producer, the musician, the singer and the writer,
The script writer, the cameraman, the costume director,
The decorator and the scenery-man,
The lone female artiste to see them and their philanthropy,
Unrecognizable!

All drunk, drunk, drunk and smoking and talking and quarrelling,
Smiling and whistling
On seeing the female artistes,
Committing mistakes,
Seeking for pardon and forgiveness,
What to say about the drunk people?

The management-read girls attracted to gala and glitz
Give away before the lust
And as turning into bar-tenders and models
And the talks of the theatre men smacking of
Beauty, gold and wine.