Skip to main content

Born Spectator



One infant grows up and becomes a Modi
Another settles down quietly with shaadi

This one the coveted circle hates to enter
That one gets a cabinet rank in the centre

I am just glad as glad can be
That I am not them, and they are not me

With all my heart I do admire
Politicians with their pneumatic tyre

And the flashing bulb on the roof
Also the hooter that’s foolproof

And the way they take each poll in gaudy pomp
And maim each opponent as they romp

My limp and bashful spirit feeds
On other people’s heroic deeds

You’d think my ego it would please
To vote to power one of these

Well, ego it might be pleased enough
But the queue at the booth is rough stuff

I’d rather be a spectator than cast the vote
For people who will only rock my life’s boat



Confession: This is a parody on Ogden Nash’s classical poem, The Confessions of a Born Spectator, inspired by Gujarat’s decision to make voting compulsory for all adult citizens.  

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 11, 2014 at 1:12 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Saru SinghalNovember 11, 2014 at 11:11 PM

    A good one and seriously shocked to learn that even voting right can be forced.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 12, 2014 at 9:27 AM

      That enforcement is an indication of things going to come, Saru. We are going to face a kind of subtle dictatorship.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousNovember 12, 2014 at 12:47 AM

    Nice poem..

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownNovember 12, 2014 at 2:36 AM

    Why those last two lines sir ? They are explicitly and with seriousness expressing what you subtly and sarcastically intimated in rest of the poem.It is like explaining what you intended to say

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 12, 2014 at 9:29 AM

      The poet persona is reiterating that he is a "born spectator"... I appreciate your pointing out the literary demerit of the couplet. But I am more concerned about hammering certain concepts down with ruthless determination.

      Delete
  5. Khoty MathurNovember 12, 2014 at 7:44 AM

    You must write a poem on how best we can prevent the 'rough stuff' at booths.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 12, 2014 at 9:30 AM

      That's a herculean challenge you are throwing at me, KM. :)
      It's so easy to be an "armchair critic" as I have often described myself.

      Delete
  6. Nima DasNovember 12, 2014 at 7:21 PM

    I too am a spectator and happy to be one.

    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
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...
17 comments
Read more

Ram, Anandhi, and Co

Book Review Title: Ram C/o Anandhi Author: Akhil P Dharmajan Translator: Haritha C K Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2025 Pages: 303 T he author tells us in his prefatory note that “this (is) a cinematic novel.” Don’t read it as literary work but imagine it as a movie. That is exactly how this novel feels like: an action-packed thriller. The story revolves around Ram, a young man who lands in Chennai for joining a diploma course in film making, and Anandhi, receptionist of Ram’s college. Then there are their friends: Vetri and his half-sister Reshma, and Malli who is a transgender. An old woman, who is called Paatti (grandmother) by everyone and is the owner of the house where three of the characters live, has an enviably thrilling role in the plot.   In one of the first chapters, Ram and Anandhi lock horns over a trifle. That leads to some farcical action which agitates Paatti’s bees which in turn fly around stinging everyone. Malli, the aruvani (transgender), s...
8 comments
Read more

The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Book Review Title: The Blind Lady’s Descendants Author: Anees Salim Publisher: Penguin India 2015 Pages: 301 Price: Rs 399 A metaphorical blindness is part of most people’s lives.  We fail to see many things and hence live partial lives.  We make our lives as well as those of others miserable with our blindness.  Anees Salim’s novel which won the Raymond & Crossword award for fiction in 2014 explores the role played by blindness in the lives of a few individuals most of whom belong to the family of Hamsa and Asma.  The couple are not on talking terms for “eighteen years,” according to the mother.  When Amar, the youngest son and narrator of the novel, points out that he is only sixteen, Asma reduces it to fifteen and then to ten years when Amar refers to the child that was born a few years after him though it did not survive.  Dark humour spills out of every page of the book.  For example: How reckless Akmal was! ...
5 comments
Read more

The Venerable Zero

Ancient India was a powerhouse of new concepts in mathematics and astronomy, asserts William Dalrymple’s new book, The Golden Road . India stood out most dramatically in scientific rather than spiritual ideas. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, wrote in his classic Discovery of India : “It is remarkable that the Indians, though apparently detached from life, were yet intensely curious about it, and this curiosity led them to science.” Why does the present prime minister of the country choose to highlight the religious contributions? Well, you know the answer. While reading Dalrymple yesterday, I was reminded of a math prof I had for my graduation course. Baby was his first name and I can’t recall the surname. ‘Baby’ was a common name for men in Kerala of the mid-twentieth century. The present General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is a 71-year-old Baby from Kerala. Our Prof Baby was a middle-aged man who knew a lot more than mathematics. One day ...
12 comments
Read more