Skip to main content

Tribute to Chavez




















Satan stood here yesterday,
The smell of gun powder lingers still…

You dared to utter those words
in the UN General Assembly just a day after
George W Bush had spoken donning the garb
of the world’s moral police commissioner.

Bush’s America, as did his predecessors’
as well as his successors’,
promised prosperity to all.
But you delivered it at least to the people of your country.
            You had a vision
                        Your life was a mission
            The world stands in need of many leaders like you.

You showed how a nation’s resources
can be used for the welfare of all the people
unlike the American vision of amassing it for a select few
leaving the rest to scramble for crumbs...

When cancer ate into your being
you accused America of conspiring to spread cancer
among the socialist leaders in Latin America.
After all, Paraguay’s president Fernanado Lugo,
Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff as well as Lula da Silva,
were all diagnosed with cancer.
Fortunately Argentine Kirchner’s cancer turned out to be false diagnosis...
You had reason to suspect American conspiracy.
After all, as you pointed out,
America had infected the people of Guatemala with syphilis
for the sake of medical experimentation!
Why not infect socialists with cancer?

Who knows what America did really?

In you, the world has lost a bright star,
             a red star,
            a revolutionary light.

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 7, 2013 at 10:18 PM

    He for sure was a great leader.
    May his soul rest in peace.

    The world has lost a bright star - So true !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 8, 2013 at 3:02 PM

      Latin America has some excellent leaders, Aram. Fidel Castro is another leader whom I admire.

      Delete
  2. mandakolathurMarch 7, 2013 at 11:59 PM

    I do not how you remember Pol Pot of Cambodia. As per what NoamChomsky says he was forced to become ruthless by the global powers of that age. Well, in the case of Chavez, he wiggled out of similar attempts, including a coup attempt. Whatever he did for his people, he did it in the face of adversity.

    More power to Venezuelans!

    RE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 8, 2013 at 3:04 PM

      Yes, Raghuram, Chavez came from a very poor family and was educated by his grandmother. He overcame a serious attack, as you point out.

      May the Venezuelans get another good leader!

      Delete
  3. sibiMarch 8, 2013 at 10:22 PM

    Never knew about him in such detail before his death! Great person. Great loss for humanity!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 9, 2013 at 7:14 AM

      Most of our media belong to right wing groups and hence they won't give due importance to the leftist leaders. Latin America's socialism is a serious threat to America's capitalism. And America counters it with many things including propaganda. The leaders of Latin America are shown as villains.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

Dopamine

Fiction Mathai went to the kitchen and picked up a glass. The TV was screening a program called Ask the Doctor . “Dopamine is a sort of hormone that gives us a feeling of happiness or pleasure,” the doc said. “But the problem with it is that it makes us want more of the same thing. You feel happy with one drink and you obviously want more of it. More drink means more happiness…” That’s when Mathai went to pick up his glass and the brandy bottle. It was only morning still. Annamma, his wife, had gone to school as usual to teach Gen Z, an intractable generation. Mathai had retired from a cooperative bank where he was manager in the last few years of his service. Now, as a retired man, he took to watching the TV. It will be more correct to say that he took to flicking channels. He wanted entertainment, but the films and serial programs failed to make sense to him, let alone entertain. The news channels were more entertaining. Our politicians are like the clowns in a circus, he thought...
11 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
6 comments
Read more

Dine in Eden

If you want to have a typical nonvegetarian Malayali lunch or dinner in a serene village in Kerala, here is the Garden of Eden all set for you at Ramapuram [literally ‘Abode of Rama’] in central Kerala. The place has a temple each for Rama and his three brothers: Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna. It is believed that Rama meditated in this place during his exile and also that his brothers joined him for a while. Right in the heart of the small town is a Catholic church which is an imposing structure that makes an eloquent assertion of religious identity. Quite close to all these religious places is the Garden of Eden, Eden Thoppu in Malayalam, a toddy shop with a difference. Toddy is palm wine, a mild alcoholic drink collected from palm trees. In my childhood, toddy was really natural; i.e., collected from palm trees including coconut trees which are ubiquitous in Kerala. My next-door neighbours, two brothers who lived in the same house, were toddy-tappers. Toddy was a health...
10 comments
Read more