The World I Never Knew Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

More vibrant, chaotic yet confident,
The image still a way bit grey, cloudy
Like monsoon's pregnant sky, hopes still hazy,
The new India seems to me resurgent,
As if her old spirit has been reborn,
But hay, still hectic hums a warning horn.

Millions of starving mouths— agape no more,
Yet amid islands of wealth aplenty,
There's a swathe mired in abject poverty,
Millions of aspirations— all ashore,
Illiterate raw heads on hungry maws,
And a new caste cast in consumer cause.

I see scores of far-flung homes without let,
Dreamers therein dreaming for better life,
All watching winds of change on screens raised rife,
Homes thatched, unmatched, but with an idiot set,
Connected, closeted by phones mobile,
Not all automobiles, but still mobile.

A mix of potions makes heady cocktail,
Greed there's for growth, wealth flooding over rims,
All seem of wings, but nebulous their dreams,
The restless young minds on the move to hail
New world, in here-to-fore unseen hurry,
Wonder, if old paradigm to burry.

In a daze, jostled for a mere toe-hold,
Where's common man in this tectonic shift?
Pension pushers, sans wherewithal, adrift,
Hapless and mute, scrambling for life blind-fold,
Dazed by daily doses of scams, scandals,
Oh lost in storm and boats have shattered hulls!

Ways of my world have callous grown, O Lord,
Bordering on white-collar theft and fraud:
A man is slain, but no'ne the butcher is,
A fraud's fraught, at large fraudster walks with ease,
One plucks, a partner packs and profit makes,
One commits, caveats whilst still partakes.
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World is changing so fast, both materials and morals, that one feels stranger in own place.
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Happenings | 02.01.11 |