The Drinker

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

The Drinker (Darru Mat Piyo, Daru Pina Buri Baat Hain)/ It is Bad To Drink, Leave You Drinking, Think About Your Family, What has Wine Given To You?/ Life Is Not A Bottle of Liquor, A Few Puffs of Marijuana, Life Is Not Drug Abuse And Alcoholism


Drinker, daru mat piyo,
Daru pina buri baat hain,
Nasha kaa huya jo shikar
Ujada uska ghar samsar!

Drinker, drink you not wine,
To take wine is bad,
One who turned into a victim of addiction
Destroyed his family!


Daru mat piyo, bhaiyya,
Do not drink, brother,
Daru pina buri baat hain,
To take wine is bad!

 People take wine
And get ruined,
Spoiled,
Destroyed taking

Daru, Indian daru,
Liquor, foreign liquor,
Wine, English wine,
Alcohol, whatever call you

My friend,
Big boss,
Brother,
Wine is wine, am I clear?

Nasha kaa huya jo shikar
Ujada uska ghar samsar,
One who turned into a victim of addiction
Destroyed his family!

Daru mat piyo, daru mat piyo,
Daru pina, pina buri baat hain,
Do not drink wine, do not drink wine,
It is bad to drink, drink wine.

Wine,
Alcohol,
Liquor,
Take you not, take you not!

Daru,
Alcohol,
Wine,
Liquor, abstain, abstain you from!

It is wine, wine which will ruin, ruin you,
It is alcohol, alcohol,
It is liquor, liquor which will, will
Finish, finish you.

Wine, wine
Abstain, abstain you from,
From wine, alcohol, liquor,
Daru, daru!

Toddy, palm juice,
Rice-brewed handia,
Earthen bowl-kept stale wine,
Mahua-made.

Wine, wine,
Wine will snatch happiness,
Happiness of your family,
Family.

Wine, wine
Will, will destroy,
Destroy your family,
Family.

Wine, wine will take,
Take your sleep away,
Away from your eyes,
Sleep, sleep.


II

Taking wine,
Wine,
See, see you,
What you have, you have!

Taking, taking
Wine,
Wine,
Drinker, O Drinker!

Drunkard, Drunkard,
O Drunkard,
The world calls,
Calls you a drunkard, a drunkard!

Having taken, having taken
Wine, wine,
What,
What have you made, made of you!

Having taken, having taken
Wine,
Wine,
What, what have you, have you!

After taking wine, wine
Lie you, lie you fallen,
Fallen on the roads, roads!

After, after taking you,
Taking you wine,
Wine, Drunkard,
Drunkard!

Do the shops, shops,
Liquor shops,
Shops attend,
Attend to?

Drunkard,
Drunkard, for wine,
For wine,
You have it all!

Drunkard, Drunkard,
For wine,
For wine
You have, have your life!

Drunkard,
Drunkard,
Your wife is weeping,
Your daughter is, your whole family!

How sad, sad and pitiable,
Pitiable and pathetic
Is your condition,
Condition!

How sad, how sad,
It is,
It is to see you,
See you, Drunkard!

III

Can’t you,
Can’t you leave wine,
Wine
Which spoils it?

Can’t you
Wine, wine,
Ganja, ganja,
Bhang, bhang?

Can’t you,
Can’t you
Heroin,
Brown sugar?

Drunkard,
Drunkard,
Can’t you,
Can’t you friendship?

With bootleggers,
Drug peddlers,
Ganjeris, bhangeris, darpiyas?

Can’t you,
Can’t you,
Drunkard,
Drunkard?

Your connection with,
Association,
Association with them,
Them, Drunkard?

Leaving ganja,
Bhang,
Daru,
Can’t you, can’t you?

IV
Life, life not,
Not a bottle,
A bottle of wine,
Wine!

Life, life not,
Not a bottle,
Bottle of wine
Deshi or videshi, native or foreign! 

Life, life is to live,
Live,
Drunkard,
Life, life is but to live!

Life, life is not to,
Not to destroy,
Destroy as thus,
As thus, Drunkard!

Life, this life not,
Not a bottle of
Beer, rum, whisky,
Vodka, champagne!

Life, life is
But to live,
But to live,
Mr.Drunkard, did you understand!

Life, life not a pouch,
A pouch of ganja,
Not, not a pill of bhang,
Bhang!

V
Mr.Drunkard,
Think you,
What life has,
What has it?

What has it given,
Given,
What,
What has it taken from?

What, what can
Ganja, bhang
And daru,
Drunkard?

What can,
What can it daru, alcohol,
What, what can it bhang, hemlock,
What, what can it ganja, marijuana?

Wine will end you,
End you
And your life,
Not only you, you, but your whole family!

Think,
Think you, where are you,
Where are you going
To, Drunkard?

Drunkard, when die you,
Die you,
None will be,
None will be by you!

VI
Drunkard,
Drunkard,
How helpless are you,
How much hopeless!

I weep, weep to see you,
See you,
I weep, weep to see,
See you!

Your eyes red, red with addiction,
Your eyes red, red with weeping,
Weeping
Which the wide world has not, has not!

Come to, come to feel it,
Feel it,
How much helpless you are,
How, how much helpless am I!

You wept, wept,
I wept, wept,
Your and mine,
Mine and your weeping

The world did not,
Did not, Drunkard,
Drunkard,
Your and mine, mine and your weeping!

You wept and wept,
I wept and wept,
The world did not,
Did not,

You wept and wept,
I wept and wept,
The world did not,
Did not

Feel it,
Feel it,
I for you, I for you,
You for me, you for me!

Teardrops fell down from the eyes,
Teardrops
From the eyes,
My Love!

And I could not,
Could not hold myself,
Myself
In check!

As such was my weeping,
As such was my weeping
That, that broke I down,
Broke I down for you, my Love!

VII
Drunkard, what can I,
What can you,
Where you, there I,
Where I, there you?

We are powerless,
Powerless,
Drunkard,
Drunkard!

The State has its own rules,
Rules and regulations,
Laws and norms,
The State has, the State has!

If the State a welfare state,
Why does it,
Does it issue
Licenses?

If the State is,
The State is
A welfare-oriented,
Oriented state?

Why does it,
Does it
Issue,
Issue licenses?

Drunkard,
Drunkard,
There must be,
Must be someone to hold in check!

The medical practitioners
Must be there sometimes
To counsel,
The bar-owners should about public health!

This life is not for to die,
Die
If if one crosses the limit,
Should be, should be checked!

One should be checked,
Checked from
Over drinking,
Drinking beyond limit!

If one is drunken,
One should be held,
Put to safety
As to make one drink is not all!

As the Govt. collects duties,
Custom taxes,
It must,
Must take a note of over drinkers!

As they cannot be left to die,
Cannot be left to die,
Die like the ragged men,
As they too are men, are men!

How to redress their grievances,
How to, how to
Their cause and anxiety,
Depression and sorrow?

This the work,
The work of the nation,
The state, the state
To look after, look after!

Larkin's "Church Going"

By Bijay Kant Dubey

Church Going by Philip Larkin

Church Going by Philip Larkin is a poem of crisis in faith and belief, angst and bewilderment we are confronted with, the age of anxiety we are born in with so many questions resolved and unresolved, we do not know which way to follow, what to do, but cleared of false notions and assumptions doing the rounds for so long. A pessimist, a loner in life, living singly without any romance, Larkin tries to dig the church surface with his existential tool of curiosity and search. Why is faith so reverent and where is it faith? What is it in church going? What is it that makes a church really a church? Is it that not a house? Why do the people go there? Such an inquisitive mind is essential for knowing the hidden facts of life and the world. Why to bemoan the loss of ideals? Why not to question them with an inquisitive mind and heart? What has it happened to faith and where are we going? What is faith? Why is it held so sacrosanct in good belief? What is it holy, unholy? Why is the church so holy? Is it the place of God? Does God live in here really? Are the psalms and hymns from the heart full of feeling?

Since the start the poet is stoical and skeptical about rather than reverent and sacred and sacrosanct. His pessimistic attitude is known world over. But his style of narration is extraordinary no doubt. In a lively manner he starts the poem with the words that he is sure of it that there is nothing going on. The church is empty and he is stepping inside, letting the door thud shut.

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
"Here endeth" much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

After the dark or when the congregations are over, the space lying thinned or almost empty, some dubious women will come to make their children touch a particular stone or pick simples for a cancer, believing in hocus-pocus or holy cure, so much conventional and faithful that they are not sure of what they are doing. It may be that she may on some night be advised to see a dead one walking. This is how the things keep going. What is religion? Religion is but faith; a matter of one’s faith. But the things are not so as we assume or presume to be. There is nothing like a place of God, but we like to give a shape to that to mean our supposition with the mat, book, dais, altar and other relics. Some neurotic and psychotic people too add to the story. The God-fearing hypocrites and whispering lady personae too add to the suspense.

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

The poem is autobiographical and ironical too when he says:

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.

The poet stops near the house riding the bicycle:

                               Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Church Going is a poem of ecclesiastical realization and existential search. Where is God?

Why do the people go to church? A poet of the fifties, a Movement man, a pessimist and an iconoclast, a nihilist and an existentialist, an agnostic and an atheist, Larkin is monotonous, full of dull, dry and dreary thoughts and ideas. Only ideas are therein in him, the thesis and the anti-thesis Shavian and Galsworthyian.

Philip Larkin as a poet of the fifties, a Movement man, a pessimist dull and dreary and drab, lost and bewildered, monotonous and tasteless, an iconoclast, an idol-breaker, a nihilist, an existentialist, an agnostic, an atheist here in this poem questions what others have left for. Why is faith so reverent? Why the house so special? What is it that makes a church church-like? Is it faith or the make-believe stuffs? His pessimism dislodges it all seeing everything but with skepticism and suspense. His is a belief in disbelief as he sees everything but with askance. The ecclesiastical people have made the church hierarchal. The religious order seems to be pontifical and hypocritical. How to dispense with and dislodge them all? How to disapprove of?

Bijay Kant Dubey's "Gandhi: A Poetic Drama"

Written by 

Bijay Kant Dubey

Removal of The Gandhi Statue From The Ghana University Campus (A Poetic Drama)

                                              (A One-act Play)

Background is the scenery of the historical poetic drama opening with it, a mode to introduce to the audience, the readers giving a background of all that happened or to take place and in Background lies it Premonition, Nightmare as the latter is just a realization on the part of Gandhi. First, Background was put forth as for introducing the play, but later on the Chorus was assigned with and allotted to the role.

Scene I

The Chorus As The Voices of Prediction And Prophecy:

In this age of post-truth evaluation,

Post-truth evaluation,

How to prevent them

If the values keep changing?

Again, The Same Choric Voices:

Ladies and gentlemen,

We are here,

Here

To listen them,

Listen them.

The Same Choric People:

What they say,

What they do,

Hush, hush up,

Silence please, silence, let me, let me hear!

(In three turns and poses and postures to predict as prophecies, giving ears to whispers and mutterings, chuckling and laughing to give an impetus to enactment, staging of the Gandhian drama of life.)

II

Background

Premonition: 

My days are nearer,

Maybe will not here tomorrow

As this life of man too is as thus

For a brief stay comes he here,

Goes away from here.

In the nightmare

Saw I someone approaching me

With the pistol into the hands,

Bowing me with folded hands,

Why is this nightmare,

I don’t know.

(And the news spreading,

 Gandhi lies it assassinated,

Gandhi assassinated by Nathuram Godse

Who also knew it

That he was assassinating a great soul.

At Birla Mandir

Lay his body still,

The earthly remains of the great man,

The old man at prayers

But the things took a turn

As thus, drastically.

With the words,

Hey, Ram,

Passed he away, breathed his last,

Hey, Ram on the samadhi of his

At Rajghat.)

    III

(A shift in scene. Gandhian images of different pensive moods of reflection made to speak with the Gandhian look-alike personae or posing as Gandhi reminding of Gandhi Jayanti celebrations, birthday anniversary celebrations falling on the 2^nd of October each year.)

Gandhi Bewildered And At A Loss (With the faint Image of his):

Again, again want they,

They to assassinate my character,

For what I did,

What I said it then!

Gandhi In Remorse(A Penitent Image):

O God, where are You,

What are You seeing,

What they saying,

O God, God…

God, The Voice of God As An Oracle:

Let them, let them, my son,

My son,

Let them, let them say

As theirs is the day!

(Gandhi feeling disturbed, blamed as for the misinterpretation, misanalysis. Gandhi looking sad and morose.) 

Scene IV

Well-wishers (Inclusive of Some Ghanaian And Indian Voices Or The Winds Hinting It):

Gandhi, Gandhi,

Get away, get away from here

As the campus is brewing with,

Brewing with trouble and tension

Fomenting for sometime.

The Voice of Gandhi:

The Voice of Gandhi,

Gandhi speaking,

Why, why, my dear,

Why, why, for what?

Well-wishers:

Gandhi, Gandhi,

Gandhi, you my Sir,

They are coming,

Coming?

The Voice of Gandhi:

Who, who my boys, girls,

My sons and daughters,

Who, who they

Coming, coming to?

Well-wishers:

They are coming,

Coming,

The guys

To dismantle you, dismantle you.

The Voice of Gandhi:

Why, why are they,

Let them, let them

If they want to,

Want to.

V

(After the trouble being fomented for quite a lot of time, the tension brewing, the radio broadcasts and T.V. news-breaks, the media personalities and the anchormen visiting the campus as for an opinion with regard to the statue installation and the aftermath of it, to gauge how the intensity of painted feeling of protest which a simple statue can provoke.)

Good Anchorman, Media Fellow

(With the microphone):

Lo, I am here,

I have reached the spot

To know the opinion

Of the boys and girls studying!

Good Anchorman Addressing the Passing Students:

Will you,

Will anybody of you

Tell about the trouble

Brewing it for sometime?

One Girl Student:

Yah, I shall

Though I do not know too much,

Bu have heard the people saying him

And the Indian independence.

One Boy Student:

Yeah, he was a great man

Who did so much for India

As far have I

From the teachers.

Anchorman Addressing Another:

Have you heard

That this old guy

Has anything derogatory

For the African people?

Another Girl Student:

No, I don’t know,

Know about it,

Know about it,

All about that.

Scene VI

(The Chorus as a choric voice or an assemblage of people reflecting upon from time to time with regard to what to take place, happen or occur in the future course of action or to enlighten upon otherwise as a hint, gesture tendered.)

The Chorus As The Notes of Dissent Sensing:

Lo, the storm is gathering

In the form of the dissent,

Dissent against the icon, the scion

Though we not against!

Good Judgement:

What, what,

What did you,

What your murmuring,

Muttering?

The Same Chorus:

Nothing, nothing

Did we,

Did we against the things

Phenomenal?

VII

(Premonition as the Refection and Musing of Gandhi ordaining it with its ruminations over and the Image of Gandhi flashing over. The Statue of Gandhi feeling discomfort in the midst of trouble brewing, fomented. The Image of Gandhi may be as shadow of Gandhi or a tiny speck of that something as photographically. It is not that Gandhi saying, but supposed to be the photos, images of his saying with the deigns and temperaments of their makers, be they makers of sculptures or images as they too are Gandhians, Gandhists, not less than as they continue to make after proper reading and assimilation of thoughts and ideas and images.)

The Image of Gandhi:

The image of Gandhi

Flashing upon

And they,

They holding meetings under the shadow of.

The Chorus:

They, they holding meetings,

Meetings unaware of,

Unaware of

Under the shadow of Gandhi.

The Chorus:

Let us, let us hide

Lest they see us,

See us hiding ,

Hiding and conspiring.

VIII

(The complainants, suited and booted coming, coming to hold meetings, the notes of dissent to be given approval in the form of resolutions drafted and the sub-committee to approve of; they coming with the petition to be handed over, to be submitted to the good office of the Hon’ble V.C.to be forwarded to be the Govt. as for relocation.)

One Complainant:

No, no, he has said

Something

Quite derogatory,

Derogatory about the Africans.

Another Complainant:

The copy of the text,

The text is with us

To see and verify,

What he has?

Another Complainant:

Why shall we,

Shall we the statue

Of an Indian leader

In the African campus?

Another Complainant:

Are there no leaders

In Africa,

In Ghana

Whose statue we cannot?

Another Complainant:

He did for India,

What did he for Ghana,

So why to install,

Install the statue of?

Pol. Sc. Prof. As Diplomat:

No, no, how can it be,

How can it be so

Gandhi anti-African,

Anti-Ghanaian?

Diplomat:

One who lived in South Africa

Fighting for justice

How can,

How can be branded so at once?

Diplomat:

He was not,

Was not a racist,

Not, not at all,

Gandhi.

Lady Journalist:

No, no, I cannot approve of

That he was a racist

As I myself loved to love

And like his theories

And went to see his statue personally.

IX

The Chorus:

They have resolved,

Resolved in the sub-committee meetings

As for the removal.

The Voice for the Govt.:

People, people

As the critics must understand,

Understand the compulsions of the times,

People too evolve.

The Chorus:

But who,

Who hears the good counsel

If they want not,

Not to hear the good words?

Good Voice:

Was Gandhi a good man,

Was Gandhi a bad man,

How to say,

How to say in this age of post-truths?

The Chorus:

But the professors,

Professors and lecturers not upon,

Bent upon brining the statue down,

Nothing, but the statue of his.

They going on a signature campaign,

Threatening a strike,

Demonstrating and protesting against

The Gandhi statue in the campus,

Campus of Ghana University.

I do not think

All are interested in bringing it down,

All cannot be of the same opinion,

Some may definitely opinion,

If it is, let it be, what harm is it going to do?

X

Campaigners (With pen and paper):

We shall continue to campaign,

Campaign for the removal,

Removal of the statue,

O Secretary, President of the committee,

Let us, let us be with!

Again, They Saying (Hand-in-hand, Shoulder-over-shoulder):

We the campaigners,

Campaigners on a signature trail

For removing the Indian statue

From our native campus.

Again, The Campaigners:

Brother, O Brother,

Sign you,

Sign you, here,

O Sir, O Madam!

Our campaign is against

The so-called Mahatma

Who is actually not,

But a simple man.

The Voice of Reasoning Contradicting:

No, no, say you not,

Say you not so,

It is bad, bad,

Very bad to say so,

You the people!

(The Campaigners looking white-collar people come and go away with the pen and paper to get it endorsed and signed, initialed by more and more people though many of the Ghanaians know their tricks, not on their side. They are just a few after their vested interests, politicking to come to the fore, to be in the limelight. And finally Gandhi will bail them out. I shall not see, you will but see it.)

XI

Campaigners Joined In by Protesters:

Gandhi, Gandhi will have to go,

Go out,

Our protests will continue

Till it is removed.

If not, we shall, shall blacken

The statue of Gandhi,

Take off the specs

Stealing from.

The Joker As The Ragged Man Wandering Around:

No, no, do you it not,

As live I near him,

My friends, if take you off

The specs,

How will, how will an old man?

The Protesters (One Or two of Them):

Who hears you,

Hears you, the mad man,

O you rag picker,

It is not your business to see!

The Ragged Man:

O my compatriots, what did I,

Said I rightly

If take you off the specs

Of an old man,

How will he see?

Do not think yourself

A patriot of Ghana,

I too am a patriot,

A freedom fighter,

A patriot.

The protesters:

What is he saying,

Saying,

Ho, ho,

O what is he?

The Ragged Man:

Ho, ho,

I am not saying,

Which you are but,

Ho, ho!

The Protesters:

O, who hears  mad a man,

A mad man babbling,

What does eh about

The statue?

The Ragged Man:

What do you, my friend,

I a man of Ghana,

You too a man of Ghana

And the old man an old man,

Off where which but I don’t know it!

And the thing that I am mad,

I am not, but you

Debating over

A cemented thing,

Dong politics.

I too a son of Mother Ghana,

You too a son of Mother Ghana,

Yours is not the word of mine

And mine is not yours,

Why to impose upon, my friend?

XII

(If the petition is placed before with the make-believe statements distorted and proven in favour of then what to reason as there lies no scope for debating and discussing the matter. What can the Hon’ble Chair do if the law is taken into?)

Waiter:

May I come in, Sir,

May I?

(The door is opened

And he enters

To place before the files.)

The Hon’ble Council Members:

Let us peruse,

Peruse the papers

Of complaint,

The petition signed by.

O.K., nothing to say

And debate,

Had it been,

Would have been good

As it is in a corner.

If we like it not

Remove we

With respect

Keeping in view good gestures.

(The Hon’ble Chair without stoking the controversy refers it to the Govt. for an understandable better disposal and relocation and the Govt. which goes not by loose sentiments and is run by able persons and administrators, diplomats and ambassadors and secretaries think about the modalities of relocation and shifting the statue. The meeting ends and the Chair moves out to the Ministry of External Affairs to relay to about the come out to work out a plan for shifting it outside the campus.)

XIII

The Wailing Winds:

Rustling by, whispering,

Rustling and murmuring,

Mahatma Gandhi ki,

Mahatma Gandhi, amar rahe, amar rahe

Taking to Rajghat.

Taking to Nathuram Godse

Who shot Gandhi,

Gandhi

After saluting him

As knew it

That he was assassinating a great soul.

Protesters (shouting slogans with):

The statue must fall, must fall,

Gandhi has to go, has to go

From this African campus,

From this.

(The Protesters as cheerleaders cheering the crowds, the campaigners with badges distributing sweets as for the statue of Gandhi to be removed.)

XIV

The Last Part

(The campus full of hectic activity and chaos, hullabaloo and pandemonium. The cranes have been called in with the earth-moving machines to lift it with the drivers, operators, masons and contractors, university officials and govt. men to supervise it.)

Masons Discussing:

Why was the statue installed

If it had be recalled,

Removed from?

Well, wages our concern,

Not the bone of contention.

Women Gathered Around (as the representative of Mother Ghana):

Great Soul, forgive you,

Forgive and forget it

What they are doing,

Forgive you

What they are ignorantly!

Winds Sombre And Sad Wailing:

Yah, the moments are somber,

Grave like the ones

Felt during the time of

The assassination of Lincoln!

Women Gathered Around (as the representative voice of Mother Ghana):

Great Man, they do not know,

Do not know

What they are,

They are doing!

A Few Illiterate Women:

Even in the house,

The young ones care not for the old,

What to say to

About the old man’s statue?

In this modern age

When we talk of old man homes,

Old age rehabilitation,

What to say about this man

In specs?

The Ragged Man:

The world calls me a ragged man

But I know it,

Know it

What they do not.

Where shall I go,

Go

If the statue is removed

The place of my refuge,

Shelter?

(The Ragged Man goes to the site, asks the masons and labourers from uprooting the statue. Later on, the security staff of the varsity campus come to take a hold of.)

Security Staff:

O maddie, abstain you from

Showing the abnormal behavior,

Let them, let them be doing,

The work they have to do.

The Ragged Man:

Where shall I sit,

Sit on the campus

To repose in,

Seek refuge and shelter

From the wide world

To think and ponder over philosophically?

(The cameramen take the snaps of and the Ragged Man lapses into the things of his own self, reclining and brooding in the aftermath of Gandhi, bringing out the books, the New Testament, Sermon on the Mount portion, The Murder In The Cathedral by T.S.Eliot and Milton’s Paradise Lost and those too the pale page old and used books received from an old newspaper collector. The Ragged Man smiling and talking to himself.)

No Man:

Gandhi going,

Going from the Ghana Univ. Campus,

The Statue of Gandhi lifted on

And placed on a cart.

Post-truth Phenomenon(As The Critic And The Judge):

In this age of post-truth evaluation,

Judgement,

What to judge

And how to judge?

Who can but say,

Was Gandhi good,

Was he bad

As the things keep changing?