Once upon a time

Once upon a time
Air and water was free
We went about our lives
And our rulers let us be

Then necessity gave way
To uncontrollable greed
And “progress” happened
With tremendous speed

To get anything done
There was just one way
One had to find a fixer
One would have to pay

We paid for drinking water
That wasn’t such a scare
We joked and we laughed
That they may now tax air!

We loved all our freedoms
In this country of the wise
We ferociously guarded
Our potent right to criticise

Then came the chameleon
With credentials of gore
He changed many colours
Even impersonated Tagore!

This salesman of the fake
Sold dozing one’s dreams
Which became nightmares
Full of sirens and screams

Then they were all gasping
Truth was displaced by lie
Before we could ask ‘Why?’
The time had come to die

We destroyed environment
For the progress of our Nation
Till we ran out of wood
To facilitate our cremation.

But why criticise Big Brother?
It is the system that failed
If you still defame the patriots
System ensures you’re jailed.

 

(Raju Z Moray is an advocate who practices in the Bombay High Court when not puncturing bloated egos while the Freedom of Expression is still a Fundamental Right! He is the creator of ‘Gobble D. Gook’, his alter-ego, who figured in the ‘Court Jester’ columns of ‘The Lawyers’. The views expressed are personal.)