How Easy it is to be a Patriot
- Dr . A . V . Koshy
How easy it is to be a patriot All I need is a pic of a flag and a frame given free on FB and when I go out to wear white or ethnic and pin on a flag put it in front of my house for all to see and on my car or scooter / bike Say Bharat Mata ki jai and sing Vande Mataram or shout Jai Hind with the mobs Oh , yes , how easy to be an India-lover while under the bridge of the metro the woman of unstable mind is gang raped and the Muslim girl I saw carries her flag out of fear home fear of being thought related to Rushdie ’ s stabber while the child comes up to me and begs silently that I buy her toy at the traffic signal , beseeching it won ’ t turn green to some God she does not feel exists but all the same just in case her silent lips moving quivering or maybe it is just one more fear , of rejection and hunger or thirst making them tremble while the jobless wonder where they should go to find one whose legs to hold and whose feet to touch while every minute life stops its nose at the overflowing drains filled with sewage-black water and fecal matter due to rains flash floods waterlogging the stink of garbage the bald tar-peeled-back muddy pot-holed roads and the sloughs of water in which are hidden pits to which people suddenly fall in in two-wheelers and sometimes even die while no one else stops as the traffic is too much and at home a wife or a child or a maid waits while eunuchs clap to get a few coins and women cast anxious glances only to be picked up by men who will violate them for money ignoring the news feed flash of a child who died beaten to death by his upper caste teacher for drinking from a pot of water in Rajasthan no white for purity no blue for compassion no saffron for unity and no green for peace only the orange that makes you wait the red for danger and then ‘ the mad rush ’ and the fear that if you are called anti-national you will be killed or beaten to a pulp and left fore ’ er , e ’ en more behind than before
Dr . Koshy AV Assistant Professor
Mount Carmel College Bangalore
June - 2023 27