I don't see no stars in her eyes: A parody on Arundhati Roy

By Manu Kant

twinkle twinkle little star ...how I wonder how I twinkle

twinkle twinkle don't read in between the lines

look at my face

look at my smile

see my nosepin

its twinkle on the outside

the passion inside

that says all

about my seriousness

about my fiery intellect

that I am not someone apart from you

when push comes to shove

& I hear the mid-night knock

it won't be worker, peasant, adivasi

to them I am a nobody

or maybe an English speaking nun

whatever...

they are after all just a fodder

to whom I try to bring civilized order

but the civil society

weaned on my pen's nib

it would be you

my middle-class background

my middle-class neighbourhood

MY CLASS

the fact I never read Marx

that Lenin is absent from my cabinet

what?

never knew who was Stalin

say it again

oh Hitler - the saviour

no?

huh, you mean Stalin the murderer

all this

all that

& much unsaid

eventually would save the day

twinkle twinkle little star

how I wonder how I twinkle

up above in the Hindu sky

up above in the Maoist sky

up above in all the skies

I am the mother of all the measures

I am the darling of this & that

my this thing

my that thing

my little thing

twinkles like a diamond all the way

twinkle twinkle

didn't you know

I was a conjurer

I have something up my sleeve

or hidden maybe in my vintage updo

what after democracy?

what else?

didn't you get it

more democracy

American style

Guantanamo Bay

Abu Gharib

Arundhati Roy in What Have We Done to Democracy?

"While we're still arguing about whether there's life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By "democracy" I don't mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are."

Further she writes: "It isn't meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It's meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy--too much representation, too little democracy--needs some structural adjustment."

so, old Marxist ideologies

are truly burried & dead

just need a little structural readjustment

in India

in Bharatmata

twinkle twinkle make no mistake I am not RED

why I promote Maoists

use your brain pumpkin head

I won't ever tell

though I fully endorse

whole heartedly market

Maoists' kill n Loo policy

(a quarterly call to the Indian govt. for table talks)

as if there is a thing called

NEGOTIATED REVOLUTION

cause I have placed a bet

I get a commission

my payroll

on the heads that roll

it is just so much fun

a great profession

no need for chess

no need for stratagem

twinkle twinkle little star... how I wonder when I turned into a star

only yesterday I was mommy's pretty dame

a standard middle-class Indian girl

doing my lessons, learning to be a professional

mixing with Rohans & Rohits of my neighbourhood

twinkle twinkle little star... how I wonder when Arundhati Roy

started going out with Delhi's prickly beards

jhola on the moda...

mod itself

the jhola

& the mod of the tilt of her moda

its nakhra

its andaaz

twinkle twinkle

all the way

my little diamond star