‘Let’s try and not be a cry baby.’
this statement implies that
we’ve forfeited the rights
to our own tragedies
after we provided them with
all the impetus and impunity
they needed to bring ‘achhe din’,
and it’d be stupid to think
it was just the votes
we also gave them our
trust, sweat, blood and
now it looks we have been
digging our graves all along
oh, how I wish
we had known and prepared for this
as now the crematoria and graveyards
have run out of space
and the dead are floating in our ‘sacred rivers’.
‘The pain my countrymen have experienced,
I am also experiencing the same.’
it’s funny how we have gotten so used to
hearing these meaningless consolation speeches
without demanding any explanations
of how and why we have ended up
in this unthinkable cataclysm;
if the new Hindu Hriday Samrat
is really pained to see thousands of
people dying hopelessly in despair
does he have at least some courage
to take responsibility and face the nation
considering he is the man with the 56-inch chest.
‘The virus is a living organism, just like us.’
this new discovery must have slipped
from our country’s finest
public health experts and scientists;
we must thank this genius politician
for bringing this to our attention;
now that we have acknowledged
this newly-found revelation,
can we go back to our usual helpless business
of saving our loved ones
by any means possible
as we know that that living organism
is killing thousands of lives every day
and we simply cannot afford
any immeasurable grief and mourning
beyond our human abilities.
even as we frantically and hopelessly hunt
for basic healthcare needs on our own,
we must never forget those who
we gave power to to take care of us,
turned their back when we needed them the most;
we must learn something from this crisis
even when we don’t want to
we must be decisive and sceptical
the next time someone asks us to be ‘atmanirbhar’.
Aaditya Pandey is a student of Journalism in Delhi. He reads a lot on politics, culture and art, and thus, consequently, attempts to write sometimes.
Featured image credit: YouTube screengrab/Editing: LiveWire