Skip to main content

Orator

When the orator sees a mike
Words rush out like a torrent.
He’s a good juggler of words.

Juggled words are like
                water drops falling in sunlight;
They have hues indeterminate
                and they dazzle.
I have learnt
                that words can create reality.

Comments

  1. Really nice especially words can create reality. I am watching house of cards and can do relate this to Kevin spacey's role.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Orator is like magician which can take in you in different world. Good post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are two kinds of orators: 1. people become frenzied after listening to this type. People can kill, set anybody or anything on fire. 2. People meditate. Here I'm presenting an orator who is a magician. You are right. But his magic may not work long. Pakistan is giving him a tough time. China may be behind it all.

      Delete
  3. Love the way you arranged it Tomichan (Mike, words rushes out, juggle, water drops....). Simply superb. Really enjoyed reading it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actually I'm not a poet, Gowthama. I'm a fool who tries to weave the weft and warp of what politicians leave us fools.

      Delete
  4. I can see for whom you have written this :) Hope and pray this reality is no illusion for juggling words without substance is nothing more than a fiction.. Nice lines, indeed..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know you understand, Roohi. Words carry meaning only when they come from the heart. Politics cannot have heart. That's why I'm fascinated by the Mahabharata and I have written two stories already based on it. Last two stories of mine in the blog. This orator-hero of the poem made me look at the epic once again. I'm afraid he won't take us far. He blamed his predecessor as deaf and dumb, as a puppet, when the latter failed to act impulsively or talk eloquently whenever there were provocations at the border. What is our hero doing now?

      Delete
    2. Hmm.. I read those stories and loved your narration.. I m no fan of him either but I would not comment at this point. Its too early. He has proved that he is not mute like his predecessor. But whether his words carry weight or are shallow will be best told by his 5 year tenure. This is just first year :) I sincerely pray and hope that he will walk all his talks as we as a nation needs a leader with steel spine after so many years of independence and under development..

      Delete
  5. loved the imagery of water drops falling in sunlight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are now living through both, Datta: moist sunlight.

      Delete
  6. I am waiting for the orator to be unmasked - Balu

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Masks will fall one day, Balu. No doubt about it. Even the Tamils' Amma couldn't sustain her mask! Bihar's Lalu couldn't. Bengal's Left couldn't. Now Bengal's grassroots mother with Mother Teresa sari as a shielding mask for her entire body also won't manage...

      Delete
  7. Oh yes, they do create reality.They create magic as well. Your words are powerful too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So, Namrata, are you saying I have no right to poke at the Orator since I am also a kind of orator? :) Just kidding :)

      Delete
  8. Of course, how one uses the words, that's important.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh thats absolutely true,words can create reality.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Words really have great power...they can create both magic and misery... nicely penned Sir... :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Both magic and misery - yes, Maniparna, words have the potential for both...

      Delete
  11. Beautiful :) Yes, I have learnt that too. Reality or fantasy, mundane or magic... words have that capacity to create. Loved this!

    ReplyDelete

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

Taliban and India

Illustration by Copilot Designer Two things happened on 14 Oct 2025. One: India rolled out the red carpet for an Afghan delegation led by the Taliban Administration’s Foreign Minister. Two: a young man was forced to wash the feet of a Brahmin and drink that water. This happened in Madhya Pradesh, not too far from where the Taliban leaders were being given regal reception in tune with India’s philosophy of Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God). Afghanistan’s Taliban and India’s RSS (which shaped Modi’s thinking) have much in common. The former seeks to build a state based on its interpretation of Islamic law aiming for a society governed by strict religious codes. The RSS promotes Hindutva, the idea of India as primarily a Hindu nation, where Hindu values form the cultural and political foundation. Both fuse religious identity with national identity, marginalising those who don’t fit their vision of the nation. The man who was made to wash a Brahmin’s feet and drink that water in Madh...

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...

Helpless Gods

Illustration by Gemini Six decades ago, Kerala’s beloved poet Vayalar Ramavarma sang about gods that don’t open their eyes, don’t know joy or sorrow, but are mere clay idols. The movie that carried the song was a hit in Kerala in the late 1960s. I was only seven when the movie was released. The impact of the song, like many others composed by the same poet, sank into me a little later as I grew up. Our gods are quite useless; they are little more than narcissists who demand fresh and fragrant flowers only to fling them when they wither. Six decades after Kerala’s poet questioned the potency of gods, the Chief Justice of India had a shoe flung at him by a lawyer for the same thing: questioning the worth of gods. The lawyer was demanding the replacement of a damaged idol of god Vishnu and the Chief Justice wondered why gods couldn’t take care of themselves since they are omnipotent. The lawyer flung his shoe at the Chief Justice to prove his devotion to a god. From Vayalar of 196...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...