The Crusader Against Corruption

The politicians are mindless
about the opprobrium heaped on them
for their misdeeds and corruption.
Politics is an open-sesame
to criminals and the cunning
for fulfilling their ambitions.
An overdose of bribes has made
public life servile and squalid.

When the courts order to attach their wealth
and detain them in prison, they make a fun of it.
' God has already ordered a one-two punch to me
to give my wealth to the poor
and go to jail for a public cause', they say.
The votes of people with nous
don't decide the winners in these obscene elections.
The votes of the illiterates and the votes
clicked in stealth choose the victors.

When the government is gripped in the hands

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poem by Rajendran Muthiah
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My First Flight

My First Flight
The Silkair-flight took off
at Chennai Airport,
where we paid sixty six rupees for two idlies
which cost six rupees elsewhere.
The wide national highways
seemed narrow lanes.
When the flight seemed moving
in snail's pace over the Bay of Bengal,
I told my wife, 'we'd be too late to Singapore'.
Our neighbour asked me if it was our maiden flight
and told the air-hostess to guide us reach
the flight to Melbourne at Singapore Airport
where in dazzling lights, escalators and Skytrains,
people would be missing out during transit.
I was very precautious to write my 'Will'
and handed it over to my daughter,
for dividing my earnings incase anything untoward happened
as there is danger from the terror, lightning and thunder
and also from the pilot's mishandling of situations.

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poem by Rajendran Muthiah
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Beggarliness

The cats march on to the backyard
Of my house and leave their kitten,
taking it for a safe haven.

When I come upon a dog
lying beside the walls of the school,
with its pups rolling over it,
I buy biscuits from a shop
and feed them with grace.

When the rats pluck up courage
to hold jamborees in the porch,
I don’t beat them or drive them out
fearing to be infected with rat-fever.
But I put coleslaw for them to eat.

When little lamps jump into my office room,
and let down their balls of dung,
I smile, lift them up and give them
to the girls of lower classes.

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To Forgive and Forget

When it was ten minutes to lunch bell,
my Chemistry lecturer completed teaching.
I swivelled to my right and looked out.
I was surprised and embarrassed
to see my mother and her sister
standing beside the walkway.
I went out with his nod and asked my mom:
' Why did you come here? '.
' Just to see your college', said
my mother in amazement.I led them out.

Walking some ten kilometres in the hot Sun,
from her Sun-baked birth place,
she came there.The lunch bell rang in my ears.
I got some cheap snacks and drinks for them
and sent them back to reach home before sunset.

I strolled back to hostel mess, with my friend.
I couldn't eat non-veggie food.
I told my friend about the sudden arrival

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Nukes and Terrors

The president of our brotherly nation
tries to strike terror in us
crying ‘nukes will hit our cities
if his country’s borders are crossed’.
We are not dribbling with nukes as he does
and our people aren’t lying on flower-beds
to have any fears for losing life
when bombs are rained on us.
In public offices shells of bribes burst daily
and the people have no place to cower.
Officers shoot those under with threats
and ‘Mementos galore’ in meetings.
Lives of workers are blown up
being driven out every three years.
Women crawl off the line of control
to garner some notes to feed their dependents.
The youths roam with guns
swearing for another freedom
but lob they bombs on the harmless.
Many a family plunge in flames

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To Be Or Not To Be?

They ascended the steep staircase up
the lighthouse unrenovated for long.
As she had the niggling fear
of his promise of marrying her,
' I thought of you more than of a lover.
I offered my heart, my self and all.
Soon, our baby will show me to the world,
though I keep our affair within the pages of my mind.
Couldn't you marry me in a month's time? ',
her voice cracked with emotions.
He was nattering about the problems of caste as usual.
'To be or not to be? ', she wept aloud.
' Be calm. Understand my position', he caressed her cheek.
He was assured of more dowry from a rich girl of his kin.
So he was plum but the poor girl of the city was glum.
' Life after death will be sweet', she uttered,
cringed at his sight and jumped over the parapet wall
and fell down flat into a bloodied body.

The boy climbed down with a ghastly shock,

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Smoking Serves a Host to Cancer

I was shocked to hear,
' Do you mind if I smoke? '
from a white boy in Melbourne Station
as I never heard it anywhere before
from people boasting of civilized manners.
The single moms here wanting a partner
say about themselves in plain:
' I smoke one or two times
and drink a glass of wine a day.'
Fine and frank wives they will be.
'Does smoking enhance your manliness? '
I asked him and he responded with a smile.

I gave up smoking
when my first grand child
told me of some bad smell
coming out of my mouth.
when I tried to revert
to that gentle habit after a gap,
a sense of vomiting, I felt

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Malkan Singh of the Central State in India

We were scrambling up a hill
towards Thathathri Temple in Mount Abu.
We pushed past many
for we were sleepless tourists
capturing a quarter of India in days ten.

A tall man in Safari suit
with a half-foot length
of unpruned mustache
on each side of his face
was trekking up
with gun-toting guards
preceeding and following him.

“ Shoot”, our Tamil teacher quipped
and screwed up his own
quarter-foot mustache
that made him often venerable.
The tall man turned back.
His fierce eyes of a tiger

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A Sizzling Love Affair

Her horny hands pulled him in her house
to have some snacks and tea,
as he was her schoolmate,
a gleaming trumpet in the class those days
but people now murmur about her putting ‘s' before ‘trumpet'.
" Look at me and write a paean for me ", she whispered.
"I will get fainted if I see your eyes straight", he said.
"See my body and feel dizzy", she mumbled.
"I will fall headlong into hell, if I do so", he begged to leave him.
"That sculptor asked me stand bare
and got an award for the statue he made", she cajoled.
" I don't look at the hair-pin bends or peaks
on which many a head tumble and roll
with the sensual eyes of a painter.
I'm a mind- reader and a heart- plumber.
I'll be sparked if something remarkable found", he narrated.
" To hell with your eyes, which are shy
to gaze at me and fly high in the sky.
A doctor looked at me as a civil engineer did.
A teacher marveled at me as if a tower crumbled by a quake.

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My Visits to a Dental College Hospital

“ You are a mental…”,
my friends say,
when I go to a Self-financed Dental College,
to clean my teeth,
and say bye to the tooth
that has some rot.
“They are fools”,
My mind would murmur
For they waste money
Paying to a private clinic
To dlo such things quicker.
Learners in a college,
Wait at the gate, restless,
To catch a patient.
When on eis caught,
They guide him to anice seat
And do; cleaning for two hours,
Clearing their doubts with the seniors.
How much blood and
Broken pieces of steeth we belch out

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