New Year Dawns! Wake Up. Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

The cost of chastity varies
from the open yard to air-conditioned room
in this rape country flooded with dirty politics
manned with rowdies and anti-socials.
The Mayan Calendar cracked jokes;
yet the New Year dawns
with all glamour of colour and sparkle.
The officers book the places in the queue
to greet the ministers with gold chains and rings
and the servants plan to wait
in the premises of the officers.
The price of gifts and compliments
soars high to scare the honest officers.
The youths at large lie in wait
to make an assault on the girls
with oodles of bottles, drugs and cigars.

My God! My friend recalls the problems he faced
for not offering gifts at the hands of an officer
on a new year day when he was in service.
Next year he was the first to wait at that superior's house
before the dawn till the great man woke up and took bath
and came out with a beaming smile to bless his subordinates.
The officer's legal wife would come out
and be busy in collecting the gifts from her brothers.
What a legacy we inherited from the Britishers!