I do both agree and disagree
I’m both involved and withdrawn
And these make me what I am helplessly:
A veritable jostle of the manyvoiced binaries
I am happy to see a crawling baby
Totter up on its legs, shake like a leaf
And fall with a thump and a smiling grin
Breaking between its thin and supple lips
I am unhappy to see it cry, on
Mother breasts that don’t milch
To wet its dry throat, and to see it
Toss like a wave breaking on a craggy shore
I agree when they go on striking
With the terrible beauty of oneness
Against the citadels of huge corruption
That daily exude the filth and froth of falsities
Rifting the race of Bengal into sundry camps
And callous creeds of corruption
With the supreme hand of justice
Dangling over them from the moon’s peak
I disagree, yes, vastly in vain venge
With the senseless nonchalance of justice
At the apex court of India to defer the cause
Of dearness pay to the workers on strike
Wrought with the lethal leverage of lawyers
And their mischievous oeuvres outwitting
The Daniels et al come to judgment
Wearing wigs of wisdom that would befit
The stage fools of the day
And I disagree vehemently
When industry is out to proceed from eviction
And castration of our fertile lands
That would feed mankind for years to come
And that was exactly what a fool of Buddha
Did years ago at Singur without a qualm of
Conscience and laid low his flagship for good
I am involved like a spectator
Lifting his hand up with three cheers
When Maradona scores a winner’s goal
With none but the hand of God Himself
Who doesn’t know God plays false too often
I am as withdrawn like a big corporate doctor
When his dead patient dies again in ventilation
Copyright@ Jay Basu
