Skip to main content

Waste Land


1.  The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, stirring
The winter-frozen blood in the veins, rousing
Mosquitoes and dust storms, dousing
The light in the souls with the fire of the sun.

You came riding waves of promises,
Development topped the list,
Quality was sought in and through workshops,
Sweatshops are what we are left with.

Unreal City,
Under the glare of the blaring sun,
A crowd flowed over bulldozed debris,
Performing the rituals chanted by the Guru.

“You! hypocrite lecteur! – mon semblable, - mon frère!”

2.  A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in itched her bum with allergens,
Her dress, words and smile sanitised by detergents,
“Your move, your move,” cried she ready to pounce
On the King on every board, every board she played against
Keeping multiple gadgets alive on her capacious crowded table.

“Bulldozer,” people called her.
Queen, she considered herself.
Heads rolled when she smiled.
Tails wagged when she screamed.
The Guru chanted mantras of success
For her the chessmen transmuted into pawns.
Before her the world prostrated
And the Guru laughed his way to the bank.

3.  The Fire Sermon

The chelas lit the fires
On pyres of protests
Ghar Vapsi, ghar vapsi,
Chanted the fires
That danced in the darkness
Of development built on infinite debris.

4.  Death by Sun

The bulldozer took on feminine agility
And achieved multiple orgasms beneath variegated costumes
When the April sun scorched the souls
That longed for spring rains and resurrection.

5.  What the Thunder Said

Datta
Dayadhvam
Damyata

But there was no thunder
There is no promise in the Waste Land
Except farts from bums
Rested on chairs that cause allergy.


Note: The poem is a silly parody of T S Eliot's famous poem of the same title and same parts. I admire Eliot. I claim nothing. Not even understanding Eliot.  I'm not worthy to lick his boots. But I love his imageries.  I love the way he can tease us out of our complacencies.  Out of our hypocrisy, perhaps.  Not out of our greed, I'm sure. Greed for power and wealth and land and...    

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 20, 2015 at 9:42 AM

    awesome :-) thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 20, 2015 at 3:58 PM

    Oh, the comparisons! I hope I understood most of it right...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Utpal KhotApril 20, 2015 at 7:08 PM

    Good one Tom.. :) Thanks..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Roohi BhatnagarApril 21, 2015 at 1:07 AM

    I understood as I read your posts about the school. It was sad. But the poem has a sharp humor :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 21, 2015 at 6:21 AM

      Land is being taken away from farmers, people are ejected from their homes, students and teachers are thrown out of School... Development comes at some price! Or have we converted everything into a commercial enterprise?

      Delete
  5. AmitAagApril 21, 2015 at 12:23 PM

    It's only you who could appropriately match Eliot's genius in words and in spirit!
    Amazingly done!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Saru SinghalApril 21, 2015 at 8:14 PM

    Same plight, different eras; I would say. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 21, 2015 at 9:04 PM

      Yes, Saru, only the time changes, people don't- unfortunately.

      Delete
  7. sunaina sharmaApril 23, 2015 at 1:06 AM

    I adore Eliot, so I was a little taken aback when I read the beginning....but you did so much justice not just to the great poet but to your words as well.....I don't have words enough to praise you Sir.....just a salute....

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownApril 27, 2015 at 2:14 PM

    Sattire and it shows pain too....kudos truly!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
25 comments
Read more

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
37 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu
16 comments
Read more

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more