A Nation On The Edge

The empty ashtray toppled...
Nothing else moved...
making the fall seem illegitimate..lonely..
The mind wandered, changed course...
Like Kosi did, a few days back...

The dampness was tell-tale,
the smells, familiar ...
and so were the wails...
Receding waters had left a trail,
buoyancy had betrayed,
like everyone else...
Handpicked by a strange looking child
was an old, plastic, mud-bathed toy...
Reminiscent of the old, almost carefree boy..
Who had once played with paper boats in the rain..
The contrast was saddening...the situations
so different...

No resistance and negative gain...
The weary mind wandered again.
The storyline got snapped by the so called "myths"
and supposedly "misunderstood" tenets of a "faith",
that have been proven to be true, umpteen times..
From medieval ages to the modern days...
On the streets...in local trains...market places...
temples, stock exchanges, even hospitals...

Seems time has run out...
The menace has grown manifold.
And if this were not enough,
Now some people are on overt "missions"
to "harvest" souls..

An impotent government, funding biased shows
Macaulay's children taking anti-national vows
A country engulfed by dangerous pseudo-isms,
and taken hostage by evil, immoral attitudes
while it's people bereft of any moral certitude...

Lost in the swinging flashbulbs,
and reverberating dark shadows on the wall...
Thoughts got stuck...suffocation was in the air
Don't know if people can still live as if
"Sab chalta hai"..."Hota rehta hai..."