It’s tumbling down, Man. You gotta
know when you got to go, Gota.
You don’t have the luxury of waiting
for Mother India to take back
her child from that harsh Uncle China
whom your brother helped
to put holes in the national pockets;
and the precious foreign exchange
is flowing out to sea, and people have
no bread, or onions, or diesel,
and their children cannot take exams
because there is no paper.
How could you live up to the billing,
the Terminator? You had
assassins driving unmarked white vans
and killing willy-nilly.
You shot the white flag crowd to pieces
at Mullivakal. But, Man,
we did not know that Terminator
meant you would punch and kick
and starve your own children in the
South as well. You say pandemic
is to blame, tourists no longer come to
the once upon-a-time paradise.
But you, my–might have been–leader,
chose just this time to direct
farmers to stop using chemicals, to go
organic. Bloody heck, Machan,
the weevils, the roaches, the rodents are
buggering away and all
the stalks are pockmarked, the farmer–
to put it politely–ruined.
So you have now allowed nitrogen
fertilizer to return on ships
that will not unload as you have not got
enough foreign exchange
to pay for the mother lode. Catch 22,
Machan. Pull out the white flag.
Go home, the signs say outside your
residence. Walk. Walk fast.