Chachu's column #15:  From Microcosm to Macrocosm (Part 2)

A new furnace is being built,
will increase the turnover to 1000 crores,
the factory will then be the largest,
Not just in India but in Asia.
There are minor impediments,
Very minor you may say,
You may even choose to ignore them,
Will not block the progress.
But hiding them is difficult.
Actually, it is the debris.
Dug in huge quantities.
Abrading earth's flesh,
through earth-guzzling cranes,
dumped in open spaces,
where a banner says "Do not throw debris here".
But what are the options?
Expansion is imminent,
to create jobs.
The women-folk are trapped,
in fetters of families and
fetters of space.
They want a park,
where the evenings can be spent,
cribbing about the mother-in-laws,
they also seek few benches,
to give their tired bones a rest,
after a hectic day at the kitchen.
Promises are made,
but orders of benches presumably not,
The debris needs space,
lots and lot of them.
Park is too small a thing,
trucks of earth will submerge it all.
"The park?" feeble voices utter.
But there are no takers.
If fact there is reproach and admonishment,
"Get your priorities right,
Park can wait,
If not you, your children may get,
the life has been spent anyway,
what's the need now?
At the threshold of salvation,
it is sacrilege to have such material desires."
The parking lot for the truck has not been spared
either,
eaten by the debris,
so the truckers dine in the open and sleep under it.
Demands are made again,
"How about a cabin,
where the truckers can relax after a long journey?"
There is more admonishment,
"The employees near the furnace don't even have a
fan,
and you seek a rest house?
You can either engage in charity,
or you can earn profits.
And if there are no profits,
there will be no truckers to sleep under the truck,
nor any employees to die in accidents,
in poorly maintained factories,
that are Asia's largest .
Get your priorities right,
Get your priorities right!"
But the boast has to continue,
largest in Asia,
second largest in the world.
Invisible from moon,
insignificant in the universe.

There is no cure,
to the problem of loneliness.
What is this loneliness,
What is this solitude?
Where does it come from,
where does it reside?
Or is it nothing,
a nothing that we seek to fill?
Fill with what one wonders?
Some take solace in companionship
and seek to marry.
But there are caste problems to settle,
and janampatris to match.
Caste must match, but gotras must not.
All the precaution and all the effort,
cannot guarantee marital bliss.
In far off land, the problems remain the same,
only the abstractions differ.
"Marry an Indian my son,
no matter what caste,
be it Tamil or Kannada.
Make sure she is Indian."
But two states are up in arms,
cannot stand each other,
just for water,
just for water.
The cable TV and the movies are the casualty,
so are the innocent cars,
and the torched trains,
The trains refuse to run.
Whose problem is being solved,
and whose being created
no one bothers to think.
The solution lies in padayatra,
akin to Dandi march,
there are more protests and more violence,
but there is no solution.
The country binds them together,
else there could be a war,
a state attacking other,
like in olden days,
a king attacking other
But civilization has dawned upon us,
so we resort to Bandhs,
and to torching our own cars and trains,
even those of our neighbours would do,
as long there is one to torch,
there is no problem ¾
a temporary vent to the unemployment problem.
While the foreign lady still laments,
"Marry an Indian my son?"
an Indian lady leaves her husband,
for her lover of another caste,
the traces of vermilion still in her hair-parting.
The mangal-sutra not bothered to be worn at all.

The problem of loneliness is not yet solved,
so there is alcohol,
and partying whole night.
Drunken driving is not a problem,
at least not in this country,
the bail is just 950 rupees,
when the entry fee in the disco is more than a
thousand.
Occasional lapse of concentration does happen,
and the imported smuggled jeep kills a few,
breaking the legs of few others.
You will get away you think,
that is the way things have been,
hit and run,
run and hit,
hit and run.
The old haggards sleeping on the pavements
were half dead in any case.
Death is not that bad,
it liberates from the shackles of life.
But there are exceptions,
a few caring souls raise a cry,
and for a change there is hearing,
and attempts of justice.
Some say it is witch-hunting,
so many hit and run everyday,
and no one bothering to raise an eyebrow?
So why this fuss when there is one more?
What if there is no license to drive,
and there is booze up to the brim,
This is still witch hunting.
So many hitting and running,
one more or one less makes no difference .

But at a temple it is not one,
there are many.
The state has been silent for a while,
the silence has been killing,
cannot be digested by few,
those seeking action.
The population is rising,
and if there is no forcible sterilization,
what better way than to hack a few.
So few perish in this noble cause,
and few more in the grief of it.
But at an island there is not just few,
few more than few,
and a few less than more,
vacationers sauntering at a paradise,
sacrificed for a noble cause.
Life is getting dull,
so few crackers ignite hidden passion.
Travel warning is then issued,
and embassy closed.
But who can fight destiny,
or the whims of the Almighty,
so whether you run away from danger,
or you run towards it,
what difference does it make?
The earth is round, remember,
you come back to where you started.

Another thing will come back,
but not now,
after fifty thousand years.
Keo is the name.
The campaign seeks message,
"What will you want your future generation to read,
what legacy do you want to leave behind?"
Words are aplenty,
no shortage of space,
for once,
thousands of words,
to be read after thousands of years.
What to say is difficult to decide,
The next day is itself an enigma,
thousands of years seems an eternity.
Till yesterday, the name was third from bottom,
but the last two were dropped,
so the name became last.
Profits will keep the position intact,
else that name too will be dropped,
and new names will then become last,
waiting to be dropped,
and the cycle will continue,
do,
while you have something to do.
drop,
while you have something to drop,
kill,
while you have something to kill,
loot,
while you have something to loot,
Profits, Loot, Space, Kill,
Right, Death, Morality, Torture,
Good, Evil, Happiness, Bad
Smile, Loneliness, Pleasure, Desperation do,
while you have something to do.

Dropping has caused further loneliness,
and the unpaid home loans further anxiety,
some fear this and don't opt for a loan,
they will die debt free.
The nation has a debt too,
so the brave countrymen fight adverse conditions,
protecting the frontiers,
protecting barren lands,
for whom, for what, for why,
The barren land is integral part,
whose integrity and whose part?
The other side is not very different.
The population problem comes again.
Already one billion,
more following every day, every second.
So new lands is required,
the integral part,
where no one treads,
where no one lives,
except brave men,
braving brave conditions,
developing psychological disorders,
and physical ones.
But the sacrifice is worth it,
the enemy cannot get the advantage,
the integral part,
The world will laugh at us,
if there is a loss.
So there will be more deployment,
and more men to brave the integral part,
to prevent further loss.

But few medals are lost,
after being caught in a dope test,
there are cries of innocence,
but no one listens.
The medals are snatched anyway.
Just few days of stardom,
but many days of anguish.
The loss of medals is not a bother,
what remains is still aplenty,
to boast the sporting skills of the nation.
Good or bad is just a matter of reference frame,
as is right and wrong,
depends on what you compare with,
like theory of relativity.
And when looked from far above,
or from very close,
all the accumulated wealth,
and name and fame,
and movies directed, and books written,
and medals gathered, and goals scored,
seems a speck of speck,
nothing of anything.
From microcosm to macrocosm,
everything is nothing,
and nothing anything.