Honest by Dawn

Dawn- Pollock

Honest by Dawn

Space age India

Lives in its villages

Truth and salt

Of the earth

Resides

Outside the taint of new-fangled corruption

New fangled because-

It's exploiting anonymous victims

And not raping the village belles

From the inexhaustible pool of outcasts.

That is like a contact sport

Or killing with a knife

Or bare-handed.

There's involvement in it,

And deliberation.

Everyone knows who is doing what to whom

In our small places-

But city anonymity can help one turn monstrous

Plundering, condoning, complicit, impotent-

Hypocritical

Foolish

Helpless-

Contemptible-

And not even show up on anybody's radar.

That's space age India for you

Corruption has become untraceable.

We know it is there, here, everywhere

But we can't prove whodunnit?

What to do?

What to say?

When everyone knows the answers-

But no one knows whether

Knowing can work even the smallest lever of justice.

If it did

Then the corrupt would be afraid-

But clearly they are not

Even smirking there in front of the world

In plain sight.

Maybe we worry too much about proof and due process

And wear our jack boots too lightly-

If corrupt people were to disappear in the middle of the night

They would surely turn honest by dawn.

Navami, 16th October 2010

Gautam Mukherjee