Indian Budgets 12 years apart (2 Poems)

Fence-sitter

Indian Budgets 12 years apart (2 Poems)
By Remigius de Souza

Fence sitter's view (Year 1994)

Grand old Adam
From heaven
Of free enterprise
Wonders, watching
The acrobatics
Of the finance expert
How he manages
Indian rope trick
Of the annual national budget
In between the holes
In the sky, by
Terrorists' acts
And Bofor's kickbacks
So also, securities' scams
Until bomb-blasts sneaks
And Mother Earth shudders,
All of which rise on and on, along
The progress chart of GNP
Successively year after year.

In the arena of circus
The first rows
And the second rows
Are entertained with
Intellectual kicks,
While the acrobat makes
Those in the stands
Forget their woes
Back at home, awhile.

The Marx, the Thoreau
The Gandhi and Leo
Watch with thumb in mouth
While grand old Adam
From heaven of free enterprise
Relishes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
(Mumbai: 8-3-1994)
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Ways to Wealth (Year 2006)
1 
Once a god adored adorned
many a head of door to an abode.
Now the gods take to the road,
beg for patronage. And the rich
beggars go globe trotting for
finance, know-how and trade.

2
Once the children of communities
cohesive received learning free
in the life-supporting skills in
branches of wholesome life-tree.

Now in the forward societies
they buy it at the trading malls
turning their clocks fast forward
until late to their adulthood
to earn their dough of uncertain
value to buy the living and life-
supporting services from expertise
at the thriving market place.

3
Now the bureaucrats – the masters
from the branches of expertise,
at their highest level of incompetence
in Peter Principle – take chairs;
replace colours faded of feudal-ship,
at the helm of the people’s affairs.

Now no wonder the prostitution goes
rampant and the pimps thrive on
as they make it quick with smile on
the by-ways and highways to wealth.

4
Now no wonder all the world children
– you and I, yours and mine –
are the cursed ‘unwanted generation’,
as much said, the ‘growing population’
by the stakeholder – the rational animal – man
as much done: the rape of Mother Earth.

(Mumbai: 04-03-2006)
Remigius de Souza
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© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.