Skip to main content

The Bagpipe Music of a Scarecrow


It’s no go the Yogi-Man, it’s no go Blavatsky,1
All I want is a pack of cigars, and a pint of whiskey
When the evening is spread out against the sky2
Like a penitent bereft of his heavenly pie.

Sorry, Descartes, I think, but I do not exist;
Sorry, Bergson, I exist, but I do not change.
Standing at the crossroads of life’s mid-way
I look like a scarecrow scared of crows,
Baffled by the tumbling turns of the tide,
The flaming sword of Eden’s cherub onward
To the battles and wars men fought with men:
His own God’s own men, in the widening gyre.3

It’s no go the bodhisattva, it’s no go the Mahatma,
All they want is a bank balance, and a bit of sadhana
On weekends to appease the thirst of the spirit
That’s superannuated on a computer’s digit.

Do not go gentle into that good night, my son,4
Coat your lollipop with iron and your heart with chocolate,
Fold your arms to the white of the priest’s habit,
Shake your hand with the blah-blah of your nation,
Do your job and hang your hat on a bomb,
And wait in patience for the extreme unction.
The hourglass distils sand dunes in a desert
And waits for an avalanche to descend the mount.

It’s no go Lord Jesus, it’s no go the Prophets,
All we’ll do is to nail you on our profits
And fall on our knees, content and worshipful,
And await our heaven and the fattened bull.

Notes
1.      Louis MacNeice,  The Bagpipe Music
2.      T.S.Eliot, ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock
3.      William Butler Yeats, ‘The SecondComing
4.      Dylan Thomas, ‘Do Not Go Gentle IntoThat Good Night


Further Notes
The above is an expurgated version of a poem I wrote about 20 years ago.  A brief conversation that took place today among four persons including me reminded me of this poem.  I had expressed my view that most religious people use religion as a mask for concealing their misdeeds if not crimes.  People who do not believe in God and know why they don't are usually honest in their thoughts and deeds.  It is because they are honest that they find it difficult to believe in God.  Such people tend to do good to others while the religious people tend to exploit others.  More interestingly, such religious people focus on the beauty of the pronunciation in recitation of prayers more than the spirit of the prayer!

If I were to write this poem today it wouldn't be the same, the expurgation notwithstanding.  Twenty years cannot pass without altering one's attitudes in many ways.  But I wished to revisit this poem because the conditions which forged it are very similar to those that I'm experiencing now.  


Comments

  1. Religion if not taken in true spirits always outcome evil and in today's world most of us take religion for exploiting others..
    Very Beautifully put...

    ReplyDelete
  2. its just a shield to benefit with it , behind it .. its a shield .. behind which the worst of human intent is protected.. as you rightly mentioned in the note, sir, they who do not believe the existence of Almighty are rather more clear with thoughts and acts!! Religion everything but the path to get God !! :)
    loved this , Sir !!

    ReplyDelete
  3. As always, sharp and to the point. 20 years: so much change and yet so little change... I can feel the feeling of ur present context esplly in the hypocrisy in ur location now...
    "...to appease the thirst of the spirit
    That’s superannuated on a computer’s digit"
    AWESOME!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Deepesh. Indeed, I had never imagined that the past would reincarnate in the same ghastly way!

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Thanks, Ankur. I'm indeed glad to see you return to my blog again and again.

      Delete
  5. I love to read your posts with your somewhat critical views simply put with the kind of intellectual flavour one rarely finds in the posts of the so called prolific bloggers.I seem to feel a sense of piety in your apparent opposition to what is represented by God because of the intensity of your compassion. It is true that wrongs done in the name of God are too many and are prompted by our proclivities but there are many who love to say their prayers simply for the sake of peace and love.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True, Kajal, my atheism is more spiritual than the religion of most believers. Thank you for delving deep enough into my writings to understand that.

      Delete
  6. True true true!!!
    Now I'm probably speechless or rather at a loss of the apt words which could define my experience as I slide down your piece of poetry..
    Loved it!!
    Especially "I look like a scarecrow scared of crows,
    Baffled by the tumbling turns of the tide,"
    and "Fold your arms to the white of the priest’s habit,
    Shake your hand with the blah-blah of your nation,"
    and...more!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. After a long time have come across a blog which makes you enjoy reading and appreciate the depth in the writing. In today's instant-noodle and instant-gratification times the writing mostly dwell on the surface. Glad to read your posts which touches upon the sublime so well. I have noticed in the blog-sphere English is fast being replaced by its colloquial (Indian) form.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm an aging man, Bushra. That could be the reason why I escape the superficiality of today :)

      More seriously, thanks for the appreciation. It does matter a lot especially in my present situation (which is reflected in the latest posts.)

      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

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

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti

Going Places with Sophie

Sophie as imagined by Copilot Designer Going Places is a short story by A R Barton prescribed for grade 12 students of a Central Education Board in India (CBSE). Sophie, the young protagonist, is just completing her school and will soon be working in a biscuit factory near her home as most girls of her socioeconomic class usually do. Sophie doesn’t want that future, though. She has big dreams. She wants to open a boutique, or become an actress, or be a fashion designer. She is in love with Danny Casey, the national football champion, and believes that he reciprocates the love. She believes that her fantasies about her meeting Danny in the arcade are real. Her father who is very practical and realistic has only contempt for Sophie’s fantasies. “One of these days you’re going to talk yourself into a load of trouble,” he warns his dreamer-daughter. The father is a traditional patriarch who works hard to get the family moving from day to day. He can be rough and blunt. He doesn’t know a

The Waste Land as a comic book

One page from the comic book Who would have imagined that T S Eliot’s convoluted poem, The Waste Land , would one day be a comic book? I was fascinated when I came to know about it from an article in Open Culture . The sample pages reproduced in the article look charming too. My first association with The Waste Land was as a postgraduate student of English literature. The imageries and motifs of the poem caught my fancy. But I’m not sure I understood its deep intricacies. The sluggish resistance to life in the opening lines shakes your very roots, “stirring dull roots with spring rain.” We don’t want to be reborn. We are happy with our hibernation. It’s a sort of spiritual hibernation. We need a reawakening. That’s what the poem is leading you to. Eliot was shaken by the disillusionment that descended on the world after the World War I. There was untold devastation which went on to exert profound impact on society, culture, and art. The war shattered the belief in progress, rat