My god is a living god

And yours is a stone, so

My god is better than yours.

My god is formless and everywhere

Your god is in a body of base metal, so

My god is better than yours.

I venerate my god

While you nail yours to a tree, so

My god is better than yours.

My god has a heart and weeps

Your god is a jealous god, so

My god is better than yours.

My god redeems my sins

Your god condemns you to hellfire, so

My god is better than yours.

My god knows how to smile

Your god only demands eternal praise, so

My god is better than yours.

My god was born of this land

Your god is a foreign god, so

My god is better than yours.

My god made man in his image

Your god has no shape, so

My god is better than yours.

My god counts the fall of every sparrow

Your god sleeps with concubines, so

My god is better than yours.

My god will be my salvation

Your god condemns you to rebirth, so

My god is better than yours.

My god talks to me in my sleep

And comforts me when I weep, so

My god is better than yours.

My god created the world in seven days

Yours came after men created them, so

My god is better than yours.

I can chop off your head

And take your land for mine own, so

My god is better than yours.

Is love a prison then

That we put together piece by piece

Of touch and kiss and sigh

Of heart and blood and soul?

Is love a prison then?

A prison to which we hold the key

But fear to turn it in the lock

And set ourselves free?

Is it freedom we fear, is it us

Too much put in for it to end thus?

Tear down the walls break down the door

Don’t lock yourself up for love any more

Smash down the gate and walk out of there

Breathe in the world and its free air

When love is a prison it’s all a mistake

Don’t wash yourself in tears for its sake.

If it’s not worth it why then it’s not

Give yourself back the freedom you forgot.

Tear down the walls, smash down the door

Set yourself free as you were before.

(Non-Indians here might not have the requisite background knowledge to understand this poem. In that case, just check this link first.)

“Hindu terrorist suicide bombers,” Bal Quackeray said

“Where are they in the hour of need?

Are there no red-blooded Hindus then?

I’ll send my son to do the deed.”

“No, no,” the Sainiks protesting cried

“Put those thoughts from thy mind so far –

We need thy son to lead our ranks

As we fight this holy war.”

“But nor can you, Shivaji’s proud sons

Risk your precious lives without cause

Who will defend the Hindus then?”

Asked Quackeray, and there was a pause.

“No fear, no fear,” the Sainiks cried

“The answer stares us in the face.

We’ll find you patriots able

To rescue the threatened Hindu race.

“Poor villagers, without a coin

Or rice enough to fill a cup

Will give themselves in their thousands

All set to blow themselves up.”

“Good,” said old Quackeray then

“Do what you have to do

We’ll blow away the Muslims first

And then the Bhaiyyas too.”  

He leant upon his drilling rig
Counted his pocket change
That could feed a million mouths
This world is awful strange.

"A strange world indeed,"
Into his phone said he
"I don't know why all these people
So hate and envy me.

"So I bathe in Evian water
While they don't have a bean
But I worked for my success
So why can't I be clean?

So my clothes are made in London
My shoes are from Rome
My suitcase is from Paris
My heart finds here its home.

"So they are starving, all of them
While I have access to food
But starvation's good for body and soul
I hope that's understood.

"Starvation's for the social good
Much moe than mere hunger is
For starving keeps the body healthy
And the mind in Nirvana bliss.

"Also important, the starving
Can't be made to rebel
Unlike the merely hungry
With rocket, shot and shell

"Really, starving saves such misery
They'd be grateful, you'd think
To be released from ceaseless want
In blessed numbness to sink.

"Starving's so good I'm envious
That they starve do and must
You'd think they'd get the message
And get down to eating dust.

"High prices are good for business
Full bank accounts feel so nice
So sad that some people moan
About ever higher price.

"If you sell something men must buy
If they want to live
High prices are a blessing
That will continue to give."

He bit into his ostrich stew
And licked his lips so light
Eyes shining with happiness
At  the poor peoples' plight.

"It helps if food gives way to fuel
To power vehicles too
For economic growth, 'bove all things
Must be sacred to you.

"Think on this, that economy
Is holier than the rest.
More than any human dupe
The market knows what's best."

He leant upon his SUV
And counted pocket change
While a million starving people
Snuffled as they came.    

November morning

The colours of day

Are grey and drizzling.

Roads, walls, grass, leaves

Curtained windows and the chilling breeze

Are grey and drizzling,

November morning

The red of your sweater

Bleeds into the air

Like a wound.

The rain in your hair

Are like pearls, like tears

Like the tears that wash your face

From pain in which you’re drowning

November morning

Kisses, and in that kiss, mouth to mouth

A thousand histories pass and pass -

Lovers come and go, and part ways in a grey

November morning

Only red lips and a red sweater show colour

And blue pain in brown eyes

Show emotion

All the while people with umbrellas hurry by

In a November morning.

You said –
Can these be mine, these hands, this face, can they still be mine?
When I me my body are no longer, no longer one
And can be used one against other, mine against me
Can this be me, can I be mine?

You said –
When what I want to happen, what I want to do
What I want to be, this is no longer for me
Am I now forever only a was, living always in the past
And is the future taken, no longer mine?

You said –
The skin scraped raw from my soul weeps blood for me
But such blood none in the world may see
For I’ve lost the right even to this hurt
The defiled heart that bears it is no longer mine.

You said –
I no longer breathe for me, I no longer eat for me
I no longer eat for me, used, as a tool is used
Abused, as a toy is abused, and thrown away
There is nothing in me that is mine.

We said –
Not you, not you, it’s just not true
You are you as ever, look and see
See yourself as we you see
Not defiled, not discarded, what we see

Is sparkling diamond
Is sparkling diamond.

Father, I remember
The time we walked together
And watched a double rainbow over a Lucknow slum

The people walked by
Those with eyes to see and those who would not see
And they walked past ignoring

The only beautiful thing in that world.

Father, I remember
How we once made bread together
And no one could eat it, and we laughed

All the waste of that good dough!

Father, I remember
The times we were cross with each other,
The times we were angry, and it was beautiful then

Because

We were not ignoring each other
And anger is better than invisibility

I wish I had been more angry with you
More often.

“That’s what we’re here to do.

We mustn’t fail in that,” and he frowned

“I must make this clear to you.

“We have a right,” said the CEO

“To riches beyond avarice’s dreams

And to achieve those riches,” quoth he

“Blood and tears may flow in streams.

“If the law it is that gets in our way

The law can always be changed

We must overcome the forces

That against us are ranged.

“If they should say we rape the world

Don’t hesitate a moment to say

The world belongs to us to do with

What we want to do today.

“It pains me, sure, when I hear

That children starve in shanty slums,

Or that polluted streams provide

Drinking water in leaking drums.

“But that’s not a problem,” the CEO said

“That slum around the city.

They can’t buy what we make

So waste not on them pity.

“They’re useless as consumers,” he said again

“What we provide they can’t buy.

And it would be foolish indeed

To look at their lives and cry.

“It’s the survival of the fittest,” he explained

“And the fittest they are not

If they were fit to survive,” he smiled

“They’d have the money we’ve got.

“In order to thrive,” the CEO said

“What you, in fact, really need

More than ability, more than smarts

Is lots and lots of greed.

“They just aren’t greedy enough,” said the CEO

“Greed makes the world go round.

This truth the world has known,” said he

“Since the first man tilled the ground.

“We own the world,” said the CEO

“We do what we want to do.

Truth of all times in these words

That I lay before you.

“We own the world, we own it all

Every little thing under the sun

And if we should wreck this earth,” said he

“We can always buy another one.”

Little boy standing at the corner

No one to give him food

No one to teach him to read and write

His only knowledge is manual work

To earn himself a bite to eat

And maybe shoes to put his feet

If someday he gets really lucky.  

You take this boy and give him food

Give him clothes and give him words

Teach him to read and write

Tell him what’s wrong and what’s right

Make him love you like a son

And when you ask him, in return

He’ll become a suicide bomber. 

Daddy’s boy watching his father work

Day and night and robbed of his reward

Watching the rich get richer on his father’s sweat

Watching his mother starve herself and fret

That her children still don’t get enough to eat

That they will never find any kind of job

Wonders what’s wrong with his world.

You take Daddy’s boy to the mosque

Tell him the mosque has the answers

Tell him if he wants he can taste paradise

All this world is sin and vice

All he needs to do is take up the gun

To fight back against evil and injustice

He’ll become a suicide bomber.

Mullah talking to man and wife

Explains their son hasn’t died

Just been translated to another plane

Honours of a martyr to his name

And he will reserve a place in paradise

When their time comes round at last

So they shouldn’t mourn, but rejoice.

Mom and dad sit side by side

Mullah man gone back to the mosque

Wonder where the music’s all gone

Wonder why all this is so wrong

And despite it all they weep

Till they cry themselves to sleep

For their son, the suicide bomber.

I’m tired of all your lies
And I don’t like you anymore.

Yes, I put up with your tantrums
I bent my back to your commands
But it’s all over now

I don’t like you anymore.

You claim to be alone, you claim to be hurt
That’s all very sad, but no skin off my nose
Because I remember when I begged and pleaded
For you to come back; and you -

And you turned up your nose at me.

Maybe it’s payback
Maybe I’m being petty;
But leave me alone

I don’t like you anymore.

Maybe I miss you
When I see the places we’d visit together
But when I think of the unhappiness
When I think of the fights we had

I don’t miss you anymore.

I can live without seeing you again
I can live without hearing your voice again
I can live without having anything to do with you again

I just don’t like you anymore.

Now you want me back, but I've got over you.
So if you want to cry on someone’s shoulder
Find another shoulder to cry on –

I don’t like you anymore.

The bombers are flying high tonight, mother

Like silver birds they fly so high

I wish I could be in the bombers mother

Spinning white trails through the sky.

From the bombers you see, mother

The land is a picture, flat, brown and green

And the blood and the tears, mother

Remain ever unthought and unseen.

From the bombers, you see, mother

The target, whatever it’s been

School, house, or trench full of soldiers, mother

Is just a grey picture on a little screen.

The picture blows apart most satisfactorily, mother

When from heaven the bombs of freedom fall  

And TV news can show the world, mother

Green glow images of a demolished wall.

Not for bomber crew the images, mother

Of children who went to sleep

Thinking they were safe in the arms, mother

Of parents who can now just weep -

Looking at the bloody stumps, mother

Of some future footballer’s legs now gone

But things like that must, you know, mother

Be ignored if wars are to be won.

And iron wheels go roaring by, mother

As tanks crush beneath their tread

The fields from which men and women, mother

Spent sweat to win their daily bread.

You see the tanks passing, mother

In uniform the soldiers look so fine

Their eyes are fixed on the horizon, mother

Not here and now like yours and mine.

The soldiers look to the future, mother

To the horizon wreathed in flames

They fight for the nation, mother

They aren’t here to play silly games.

Emotion is not a winner, mother

In a world where might is right

And the soldiers know the truth, mother

That is why they go to fight.

You look into their eyes, mother

Why do you wonder that they cannot see

What to you is one thing, mother

Is quite another to them and me.

No wonder, then, believe me, mother

That they crush beneath their tracks

The little children the bombers killed

Lying in the open on their backs.

Life is just a stray incident, mother

Death comes as the end.

And what is the here and now, mother

Slides forever round the road’s sweeping bend.

The soldiers and the bombers know the truth, mother

That it’s better each time and by far

To do than to be done unto, mother

And that is why they go to war.