THE EMPIRE PEDDLES BACK
                By Badri Raina 

        When you came Bible-peddling,
        I was not numero uno;
        Now that I am, take back with
        Interest wages for that meddling,
        As a hundred and seventy nations
        Back my awesome, acrobatic show.

        Watch the thrusting of my leg,
        Chest inflated, arms akimbo,
        Fire in my eye, beard aflame,
        Heart raging with dream
        Of conquest, mind intent on
        Weeding out all such element
        That questions my abhiyan,
        Kicking up an anti-national row.
        Espy these legions of health,
        Backed by bushel-fulls of wealth,
        Retreat, and never again dare
        Come anywhere near Delhi,
        Lucknow, Jhansi, Agra,
        For Nagpur now insures Bharat
        With a prowess that will
        Not spare your imperial belly.
        Be warned: as I gyrate, twist, unwind,
        There is nothing spiritual on my mind.
        Our grand army of NRI Ninjas
        Is Enough to subdue your cool
        To contortions you never knew.
        And political dividends better follow,
        Such as your rotten dollar and Euro
        Without let, hindrance, delays
        To fuel my smart city-make-in-india craze.
        Should you do that without demur.
        We will not break another church door.

        Anti-Hindu carpers at home
        Will no doubt carry on their moan.
        But worry not, take a hint
        From what the discarded patriarch
        Has said: if need be, we will enforce
        Our right to Emergency. In fact
        Are we not already there,
        Without declaration or fanfare?
        Note that when our patriarch
        Be unduly grim, we do listen to him.
        We may jail even those who fail
        Us internationally, given that our
        Vikas rate now self-evidently shames
        Many a so-called advanced state. As
        To poverty and the poor, we
        Will leave that bother to those who
        Better undertake such chore;
        After all, what are the Congress
        And the Left parties for? As we
        Yog to golden blasts of growth,
        Poverty gives them something to do.
        Thus wily old Disraeli’s two nations
        Remain distinct, disparate, true.

        So, let Yog be the thin end of
        The wedge that makes the white
        Macaulay brown, and yields
        Many a manufacturing town,
        That teaches the swaggering Brit
        To quit his tainted  English for
        The profound beauties of Sanskrit —
        Minus, of course, the naughty things
        Therein, which apocryphal incursions
        Owe to the conquering Saracen.
        Such embarrassments as Kama Sutra,
        Kumar Sambhava, Mrichikatakam, or
        Mudra Rakhshasa, and other things
        Of that ilk, mere evidences of hacking
        Long before the computer was a-making.
        We mean the Sanskrit of the gods
        Alone, not of men who actually
        Used their human penchant, quill, or pen.
        All that of course, our learned ones
        Shall impart with a fee, as Bharat
        Will rise and the west go under
        The sea. Such is the meaning
        Of Yog, such is our ineluctable fantasy.

        Now gyrate, gyrate, do not miss
        The bus; even Wall Street knows
        The twenty first century belongs to us.
        So do thine Yog without snooty fuss.