Three shorts from KL

1.
The meek shall inherit the world
If not, they shall
At the very least
Nudge it
A little bit

The Tunisian fruit vendor
Mohamed Bouazizi
Who
Had a fracas (to salvage his male ego)
With a woman police officer

Leading to protests
That toppled a government, sort of
And modified
The future of Egypt
In a way, its citizenry never-ever dreamt about



2.
The blind brother number two
A proud Cambodian
Removed his dark glasses
And roared
The judicial investigation is unfair
It lacks transparency

This
After the supreme judge
And the tribunal sentenced him

For
Emptying the cities in the country
Abolishing currency
Shutting down all schools
Killing 15,000 people in a day
To ensure the long life and good health of blind brother number one

Relatives of the murdered victims
Shouted slogans
Outside the court
That blind brother number two
Should be buried alive in the mass graves
In Choeung Ek
Tit for tat

A small minority said, spare him
For a small mistake
The Khmer Rouge did what it did
To ensure the prosperity and progress of our nation

So then
What is this thing called justice?
Asked the custodian of law
For he
Knew the name of the concubine
Who delivered sudden death to blind brother number one
By poisoning his bed tea



3.
When
The law abiding authority
Told protestors
Tomorrow's march has been declared illegal
That if anyone took a step forward
Legs would be broken
Skulls smashed
Slogans water-cannoned

One of the protestors
Came up with the idea: There's no law
That prevents rallyists from walking backwards
Into the city centre
And
That's what we must do


PostScript.
Greeks of the world, unite
You've nothing to lose except your billions

A tribute to her

Kiss me
She says

He stares at her sweet, drunken lips
Not knowing
What to do

Exasperated
She goes home
Scrapes the chunna off her bedroom wall
And licks it
To assuage her broken heart

PS: In this way, she notches up one more avtaar of sadness

PPS: And for him, one more missed opportunity

The saga of the noted botanist

Two years, later
He returned from the rain forests
With the Rafflesia Leonardi

His grand-mother (maternal side) used to call it the corpse flower
And his grand-mother (paternal side) the meat flower

He caressed the five-petalled flower
All 39 inches of diameter
22 pounds
Brownishly grayish with dotted design

His bestest gift, ever
For his beloved wife

She was asleep
She generally was

She yawningly squealed and said:
What a strange flower
With no stems, no leaves, no roots
Plus it has the horrible stench of dead meat

Please throw it out of the window
Immediately

Baba Ramdev sat on the wall

Baba Ramdev sat on the wall
Baba Ramdev, he had a great fall
All the PM's Ministers
And all the PM's men
Could not make Baba Ramdev do his asanas again

It's all Greek to me

In a small town
In the middle of nowhere
The man helped his mother get off a crowded truck
He carried her
On his shoulders
To the only clinic in these parts

Mother has TB
A month ago, dysentery and snake bite
It is curable
Technically
Said the doctor to the son

In another part of the world
Economists gathered
To diagnose the Greek economy
As to how a minor cold became a flu which became an allergic rash
That became a disease
Crossing borders

And is that curable?
Yes
Said the suited-booted men
During a secret meeting in Luxembourg

And
This time someone did manufacture life saving drugs
Administered in the nick of time

Oh, to be in Sialkot

Oh
To be in Sialkot
And write like Faiz
About knees that caress each other
Hearts that pound
While alcohol flows as freely as her hair in the open air kitchen
Fraught with tension
In which she must re-build her life

She kneads the dough, serves rotis
Which she serves with a smile

All I want to tell her is
There is a world outside
And she will have to oil the hinges of the doors
Step out of her grandfather's haveli
Or else the road will be empty
With no one to show her the way

R.I.P.

When he was shot dead
The PM sent a letter to the CM
The CM sent a letter to the Deputy CM
The Deputy CM sent a letter to the Home Minister
The Home Minister sent a letter with a RSVP to the top cops
One of whom got transferred to arms control

On cue
Four under-paid scribes went underground
A few wept copiously
Hundreds protested

That's when you realised
Beneath the banter of Old Monk and Thums Up
At the Press Club
There exists a world where nothing is quite what it seems to be

And basically how totally fucked up we are

How to topple a dictator ...

Basically, three ways

1. You out-pay the dictator's cronies
2. You start a people's revolution when the dictator is aging - and research indicates that his oil resource / bank balance is depleting
3. You play Bridge with the dictator, and poison his mind - and bed tea

Mamta appears in my dream

So
Mamta
Appears in my dream
In a crumpled cotton saree with a green border

With clenched fists
She is heading for a rally in Lalgarh
And to attend a plenary session in the house

She asks me
What should I say?
What should I do?


Bhai, help me!

She sips tea
That I've prepared
In order to buy time
That's when I tell her:
Please request Budhadev-ji
He'll write your speeches
Draft your proposals

Maa, Mati, Manush
I'll decimate you with my Dhanush

She pours tea
On my head
Walks off
Muttering even people's dreams are infiltrated these days