He placed his head on the idol’s feet
In soulful prayer
For his wife and kids
The world and all that lived
Didn’t the age-old prayer say
In pristine Sanskrit
“All that I see,
All the worlds, as worlds are the seen,
Be auspicious and happy”?
His better half, vociferous like Greer
Her fair body clad in chiffon
Like a lollypop in transparent wrap
Told her friend
I can’t stand the guy
My husband, he is an MCP*
He asks the kids to pray
Prescribes ancient texts
Picked from scriptures
That have lost their sway
Pries into what they read
Detests the TV they are glued
Her friend cackled
In effervescent bursts
“He sure is the last,
Don’t care two hoots
If the first two are true”
Chiffon-pack chuckled
Like a cuckoo bird
To join in the mirth
The humour was worth
Loud mouthful laughter
Let us hurry to the club
Work still awaits
Before the evening meet
On the fight for our oppressed ilk
Let us clad ourselves well
A woman’s success dwelled
In her body cleverly wrapped
Age didn’t matter
And in the degree of discomfort
It gave young male rabbits
Who throng women’s meets
Meanwhile, the pig toiled
Between his factories
His mind fully occupied
With how to plan taxes
Manage the kids’ expenses
Pay their growing spectacle bills
Settle the wife’s vagaries
And run an empire growing beyond his skills
The union guy demands
A new television
On top of a cell phone
Gifted a week before
The nasty guy must be laid to rest
Lest he steals peaceful sleep
Shouting proletarian rights
He recalled the way he began
From scratches on days bygone
In the city suburb
He still loves it
To follow old rules
That made him a man of worth
Crores has he amassed
Wisely placed hither and thither
He would get into the middle
Of his workers and toil
Like one of them
It didn’t matter if his attire was soiled
And if he smelt sweat
Which the chiffon called a stink
He would then don
At the end of the day
The tie and jacket hung
On the wall and hurry
Brushing his hair on the way
To clients with cart-loads of deliveries
Invoice book, carbon and pen
Ever ready in his long coat pockets
The pig sat ruminating
Yawned to the grinding tune
Of the grandpa ceiling fan
As the sweating summer afternoon
Sank its way to horizon
The brats are yet to return
And cause commotion
Pandemonium would soon devour
The peace of the house after school hours
Agnes, the maid, moved in like a breeze
Holding his steaming cup of tea
She is their maid ever since
He married the chiffon pack
Brought her home long back
Childless, widowed, she was it
If gentleness had another name
Hailing from Goa she brought in
Peace of beaches, moonlit nights
She did bear the chiffon’s whims
Saintly with a distant smile
She could stand the kids’ antics
Sagely composed like a stoic
Wherever did she turn her eyes
She saw only Jesus Christ
Her one and only single child
Though she mothered everything
Elsewhere, in an overcrowded hall
Extempore prolific chiffon spat
To unending thunderous applause
Swooning over a big-wig guest
Acclaimed champion of the weaker sex
A perennial wife-beater in secret
He sat stroking his moustache
Ogling the fluttering damsels
And rehearsed the rhetoric stuff
His junior has penned for his address
The lofty stuff the guy fabricates
Has always been beyond his wits
Knowledge he guessed
Never courted success
The junior was evidence
Unknown he remains accursed
As slumber weighed his eyelids down
The pig wished he had married the maid
Guilt soon brought his deity in
To duster the thought off his mind
As he snored his way down in
To the land of peace with no things seen
_______________
MCP* = Male chauvinist pig
Please read the poet’s note below.
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