ramu

A gentle reply to the Honourable FM

The evil that politics does would not have lived If not for these wretched writers who are so naive

 

BY- RAMU RAMANATHAN

Friends, Indians, countrymen, lend me your likes;
I come to defend a few writers, not to praise them.
The evil that politics does would not have lived
If not for these wretched writers who are so naive

FM Sir! He is so right –
Why should we talk about Mr D or Comrade P
When Hindustan has such a high single digit GDP
Plus everybody knows what happened to Mr K
He was shot, for having a tinge of reddish grey
It is the fault of the writer, the FM tells
These social socialists, behaving like pest
Constantly, manufacturing some protest
They don’t have a single paise to pay their rent
All they know is their -isms,
The honourable FM reasons
Writers of this land are: ideologically intolerant

Now
The FM, he is an honourable man;
The Culture Minister, too, is even more honourable–
In fact all of them are very honourable
So I must not speak aloud and in public
Even if a writer is my friend, fair and brave
Our national motto is: Bhayamev Jayate

Now
The FM says, writers are propagandists
And the FM and his boss are honourable men.
His boss hath brought many a selfie, home to Dilli
But have the RBI coffers with black money been filled?
Alas no! If a writer points this out
Then he is worse than a lout
When the humble dal is Rs 200 a kilo, the poor do cry
Tell me, at such times, should the writer tell a lie

Yet
The FM says writers lack national conscience
And the FM is a very honourable-learned lawyer.
You see everything he says, has a precedence …
Nayantara is a Nehru
– Salman is a pagan
– G Devy is an academic
– Amitav wrote only one book about the Delhi riots
– Ghulam Nabi Khayal is an intellectual
Srinath is a secularist
– Pragnya and Urmilla are feminists
– Pragnya and Urmilla are also Ambedkarites
Sambhaji is worse, a Marxist-Ambedkarite
Rajeev is an extinct species, a playwright

The above have fought many an ideological battle
Against all types of tyrannical talk and tattle
They been whipped, they been jailed
With their verse, the mighty have been nailed
Yet the FM says they are villains;
And knows, cause the FM is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what the FM spoke
But
Rajeev did distribute pamphlets in public loos
During the Emergency when he decided to do
Sambhaji still sings those people’s songs
Perhaps the FM feels, the tune is wrong
So some are labelled, green and budhi-heen
Others ain’t Right, cause they are Left
Words are typecast as Kannada, Gujarati, Punjabi, Konkani
If you don’t toe the line, then you become a Pakistani

It is this which causes me to mourn for the writer
O Art! Are you being fed to brutish beasts
O FM! Please bear with me;
I reserve my right to disagree with you
No doubt, your North Block is very powerful
Beware: The people of this land are no fools

  • See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/blogs/a-gentle-reply-to-the-honourable-fm/#sthash.Xv9abJQ7.dpuf