Dear Backpack

As we lay on the cool grass today,

Watching the fluffy clouds and hearing the trees sway,

I thought of all that we had dreamt of together,

Of faraway lands and wandering forever.

Of red lanterns adorning hutongs,

And oriental villages dancing to Mandarin songs.

Of befriending strangers each place we went,

New stamps on each postcard we sent.

Of worn books and reading by the noisy sea,

The only constant companions, you and me.

Of tents under a starry night sky,

The simple joy of a stream murmuring nearby.

Of conquering tree lines and verdant meadows,

Obstinate rocks and freshly fallen snows.

Of cairns and azure lakes and glaciers in the nude,

The ecstasy of exhausted muscles defeating altitude.

Dear dream weaver, it’s time to go home now,

We’ll chase those dreams, someday, somehow.

The Aam Aadmi is a Fool

For centuries now, vehemently ambitious upstarts have been using guile and carefully crafted reasoning to mis-guide the naive populace that inhabits the great lands of the Indian sub-continent.

Barbaric Babar
In 1526 Babur, a savage warrior, used his newly acquired technology of cannons and muskets to defeat the then King of Hindustan, in the Battle of Panipat. In the battle that gave the foreigner a hold over Delhi, Babur had defeated Ibrahim Lodi, a muslim like himself. He had promised his armies riches beyond wonder in return for their allegiance.

Scarcely a year later, Babur saw a threat in the form of the Hindu king, Rana Sangha of Mewar. When his many advances in battle resulted in failure, Babur's armies started losing motivation and could no longer be bought with bountiful riches. At this point, Babur decided that he needed a new way to rouse his fickle followers, so he did the following:

• Babur announced that the war against the Hindu king was a holy war against the infidel, and hence commenced the first jihad in India's history.
• Known as a lover of wine and ganja, Babur publicly renounced these intoxicants to prove his staunchness as a muslim. However, in his own diary he talks about privately still savoring wines from Kabul.
• Babur had several Hindus in his armies, he detached them and set them to attacks on different fronts so that his majorly muslim army would have no doubts the masquerade of a 'holy war'.

Roused by this fake call to jihad, Babur's armies rallied and Rana Sangha fell in the Battle of Khanua. And Babur had secured what he desired- a dynasty to pass on to his four belligerent sons.

Wily Politicians

Barely 420 years after Babur's grand deceit, India stood again at a crossroad. After years of laborious revolt by the common man, after shedding the blood of countless, nameless common citizens, India was to finally get freedom from foreign oppressors. Two ambitious individuals- Jinnah and Nehru- were vying for supreme power in the soon to be independent nation.

Each wanted power and the decision was not easy. So, in haste to gain power, they submitted to the absurd plan to partition India based on religion. The decision led to unprecedented exodus and bloodshed, scars that have not healed even 67 years hence. The two men were given charge of their pieces of the pie, no matter that they have left a country of one billion aam aadmi distraught in disarray having to deal with the murder of countless soldiers on hastily and sloppily drawn lines in ink over paper.

So Will You Be a Fool?
In each of the two illustrations above, what amazes one is the unflinching ability of ambitious arseholes to mislead us- the common man- so that they can achieve their personal agendas. Whether they use religious masquerades, or feign allegiance to our cause by naming themselves for the aam aadmi, we in blind sentiment believe the blasphemy meted out to us time and again without a hoot for fact and fiction.

So as we stand on the verge of another general election, this is a humble supplication to our country's common man- let us not be fools; let us not believe at face value what the AAP, the Congress, the BJP or what our regional parties are feeding us. Let us use our intelligent discretion and save this country from the almost certain doom that we are heading towards.