Big Brother is flying high
Soon he’s gonna touch the sky
His ideology has spread far and wide
Too late, too late to turn the tide
Young children have become cannon fodder
And he has become God and Godder
Soon he’ll reach the state of Goddest
(Will our country then be the oddest?)
Seats of learning are learning that
All who wear the Big Bro hat
Can go where they please
The rest of us can find release
In tweeting inanities and not much else
And inhabiting our own private singular hells
There is kindling, dry and brittle everywhere
Not just near Big Brother’s lair
All it needs is a spark or two
And the fire is blazing, consuming you
And him and her and them and me
And I stare at the flames stupidly
And wonder how we as a people got it so wrong
Tam or Gujju, Punj or Bong
All of us collectively to blame
For this all-consuming collective flame
Let’s look in our hearts for a simple way
To douse the flames, today; today
For a start, let’s spit on the flame
Ignoring the pervasive cries of ‘shame, shame’
Just as a spark can start a blaze
A little spit, the spark can erase
Standing by and being quiet
Is tantamount to condoning a riot
Against the crime of silence, we
Must raise our voice and save our country.
This poem first appeared on Sunder and Sonati’s blog, Anhad Ka Baaja. Read the original here.
Sunder and Sonati have been living and growing a forest on a small piece of land in Thekambattu in rural Tamil Nadu for the last 20 years. You can read their blogs here and here.
Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty