Chachu's column #5: From Microcosm to Macrocosm

 Thy sit in the drawing room,
    flipping 100 channels through the remote,
        waiting for thy death,
Thy neighbour is not so unlucky,
    thee does not have to wait,
        thee is burnt in the train,
        or, if thee is luckier,
            in the house itself,
Then, there is a debate,
    'who started the fire' thy ask?
        but the earth is round,
    who can say where it starts and where it ends,
        but this does not affect the debate,
            'thou were provoked' thy still protest.
Same may be said for death itself -
    Who knows what is life, what is death,
Where it starts and where it ends,
When the body dies, the soul still lives,
    and when the body lives, the soul is killed -
    the definition then becomes nebulous.
So are thy living or are thy dead?
    And if thee are dead, then does it matter - who started the fire
        because a dead does not die again,
            Or does it?
Thy sister shrieks nearby,
    thee is raped there, two here,
        in a mob, there is no villain,
    the time is ripe, to have some fun,
        to shed the bedroom boredom.
And there is more debate
whether thy ate beef some thousand years back,
    or a particular leader did something amoral,
or few pages were purged from history book or not.
Whatever,
the inferno is not visible from moon,
        Nor the twin towers,
        Only great wall of china,
    so does it matter if the towers remain or not?
What about the loss of human lives,
    Or, the financial losses,
'I want revenge' thy proclaim,
    And a savaged nation is further battered,
        Thy bemoan - 'the cost of life is not worth a penny,
            The missiles are million dollars apiece.'
Still, the missiles do not stop coming down,
    Occasionally, with food packets,
        a mother then wonders,
    whether the lost limb of her son is important,
        or food to survive for another week.

Uranus is oblivious to all this,
    It has its own share of problems.
        Neptune has started eyeing Pluto,
    Uranus seeks help.
        Scientist offer a new planet - Planet X,
    But this is not the end of the problem,
        who knows how long the relationship will last,
            these are trying times,
    Everyone wants independence,
        a small skirmish and it is adios.
The sun too is seething in anger,
    burning ever since,
        but no help is forthcoming.

The commuters burn too,
    in a heated debate,
For those in the air-conditioned car,
    it is better,
But what about those,
    who use the diesel buses,
These buses belch black smoke,
    which seek a place in the infinity,
Some do not like this, want cleaner air.
And there is a debate - what is clean?
        Carbon mono-oxide or sulphur-dioxide,
            CNG or Ultr-low-sulphur.
Unwittingly, the 'ultra' is dropped'
    but 'low-sulphur diesel' remains,
        but the debate continues - what is clean?
the diesel company pays for a research,
    to prove why diesel is not that bad,
        and few CNG buses explode,
            who knows why,
    and the question of safety
subverts the issue of pollution.
Does it matter whether thy get burnt in the bus,
    or through asthma and other disease,
        waiting for thy death on thy's funeral pyre,
    many are dying anyway,
        if not in bus then in train.
Death is above all,
    does not differentiate between the cause.
But who cares about death,
        or an impending disaster,
I want my money thy say,
        by selling whatever I can,
    what the next generation gets is immaterial.
    The fossil fuel is depleting anyway,
            will last for another hundred year or so.
It is all banality, thy holler,
        when nothing is left, how will thy pollute,
it is the last chance,
so make the best use of it.

Somewhere, an old man sits on a fast,
    demands a review of certain artifact,
        the canvas is the planet itself,
            the master plan has a line,
        and the course of a river is altered,
    few valleys are drowned,
        and few million displaced,
    some of these will perish,
others will survive,
contributing to the urban squalor,
        but the debate will continue,
            what is good and what bad,
    what is life and what is death.
Whatever,
    the supremacy of mankind will be reaffirmed,
        while research on AIDS will continue,
            and unknown diseases will continue to cause death.
    But death is not that bad,
        it liberates from the fetters of life.
    And more debate will happen,
'What is God' but a fool's chimera
    and whether 'Euthanasia is good for health.'

Thy profundity is unexceptionable,
    but what lies beyond narrow realm?
The space is expanding,
    into what thy question?
        And few space-ships are launched,
            again seeking a place in the infinity.
But there is only nothingness in the infinity,
    and infinite energy in the atom.
The energy is again debated,
    'Only for deterrence' thy proclaim,
        and a truant neighbour threatens misuse,
    but some do not threaten,
        thy hegemony must be established,
            so few bombs are dropped, and millions die,
        but the appetite for power is satiated,
            temporarily at least.

A certain tax proposal creates furore,
    the additional burden is unbearable,
        thy do not have a voice,
            so thy will suffer,
the weak will  meekly yield to the powerful,
    those who can kill, will,
this is nothing new,
but thy protest, 'Aren't we not civilized -
At least we proclaim so?'
Laws are made,
    presumably,
        but are they followed,
    thy do not have an answer.
Then why this pretense?
Then, there is action and reaction,
        Newton's third law,
Thy kill one,
    I kill two, and rape two,
        the reaction then equals action,
The math is somewhat different here,
    the definition of civility too,
        in fact, the very concept of civility is a myth,
to give comfort to the meek and the timid,
    actually, we are progeny of savagery,
        our ancestors hunted and looted,
now, the form differs,
    the scale differs,
        but the act remains,
        those who can kill, will.
'Then why this debate of morality,
    and what about conscience' thy ask
        but how these notions came,
            to cause needless misgivings,
the body will live and soul will die,
    and the debate on life and death will continue.

El nino is giving some problem,
    and the choked sewage lines,
        which are full of polythene bags,
but what is life without them,
    and who will sort the vegetables if there are none,
        thy mother and wife fights with thee,
    there is already lot of trouble,
        thy do not seek more,
            what happened with Uranus thy remember,
        so thy will have one bag for each type of vegetable,
    the half life of polythene being a million years notwithstanding.
The national average is still two kilograms,
    while the world averages seven,
        there is lot of scope of improvement,
            lot of forest lands still
do not have a polythene cover.
There is a ban,
    'no bags less than twenty microns' thy declare,
        but thy do not say how to measure,
    so twenty or two makes no difference,
and more bags in the market,
    and more money in pocket,
the magazine will then proclaim,
    thy have become seventh richest.
But thy neighbour still thinks,
    what is money but wads of paper,
money does not bring happiness,
    but then nor does poverty?
Thou should be happy when thy have love,
    but thou art not when thy have,
        thou seek something else,
    may be name, may be fame,
        to be known even after death.
But how to be known after death,
    or is death just an illusion,
        just like life itself,
    and like many other things,
        including time.

The Almighty is sleeping,
    the two children playing with the universe,
the noise is disconcerting,
and the sleep is disturbed.
The Almighty picks a hammer,
    and breaks the universe with a big bang,
the pieces try to escape,
some successfully run away, some tire mid-way.
One of them is the milky-way,
    in it is the angry solar-system,
        comprising the angry sun,
            and the earthly matter.
What is earth but a speck of dust,
    in the canvas of universe.
And what about the so called masters,
    the rulers of earth,
        when everything is nothing,
    and nothing anything,
And the accumulated wealth,
    and name and fame,
        and movies directed, and books written,
            and runs gathered, and goals scored,
    and heights conquered,
        and depths traversed,
            and persons burnt, and women raped,
        what is what, and why is why,
        but a speck of speck,
            nothing of anything.
Millions of years before,
    and so many after,
        only seconds seen,
            and day's missed.
The haughty dinosaur too bit the dust,
    but the measly mosquitoes and ants survived.
Who's turn is next, who knows,
    till then there are things to be debated,
        names of places to be changed,
and problems to be found in solutions,
    and questions to be asked,
    how black is black hole,
and when was the civilization created
    (when the definition of civility is unclear),
and whether a minister should administer anymore.
But some will still worry about mundane issues,
    how to get the next bread,
        and how to get employment for the son.
    And the refugees in the relief camp will wait,
        for death or for food, both will do,
From microcosm to macrocosm,
        everything is nothing,
    and nothing anything.