223
Cocaine Communism Coming To Kerala
Political Poem
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Image by ..... Graphics: Adobe SP.
Sahyadri Books Trivandrum presents the first-of-its-kind political poem from Kerala: COCAINE COMMUNISM COMING TO KERALA:
Cocaine Communism Coming To Kerala
Political Satire In Poetry
P. S. Remesh Chandran
NOTE: This author decided to write that rotten political saga for a time, as a beginning, till others enter the field and continue it.
I
If someone asks your vote and money
Never vote for him,
If someone asks your vote for money
Again never vote for him.
Marxist Party came to homes and
Asked for vote and note;
People asked them, got`not enough in
Narcotics and gold?
Here I will tell you how this party
Bred of blood and bone
Of workers universal came to this
Smuggling coke and gold.
II
Strong supporters of Marxist party
Parade through city streets,
Shouting their slogans rising high
Up into the scorching sky,
Reverberating round the skyscra-
Pers where corp’rate heads
Working round the clock and decide the
Party policy,
Betraying multitudes of workers
Making bread for them-
Unbreakable soulmates who have but one
Escape route to sky,
Where rest the martyrs slain by them
Who once were their comrades
Who marched and sang and shared their souls
In causes lofty once,
Who disagreed with party programmes
Aimed at scoring votes
For securing seats in disinte-
Grating parliaments,
Forgetting class wars, peasants and the
Prolitariate,
Working hard on the plantations and
Blazing furnaces.
For raising questions based upon the
Long-lost commitments,
And asking questions face to face to a
New breed betrayers,
And criticizing lifestyles of their
Leaders were they slain:
Where Caesar suffered thirty two
Cuts, they had fifty two.
Communism swings aside for
Communal elements,
Splitting citizens into Christians
Hindus and Muslims,
And all their sub-divisions, factions,
Castes and inner clans-
Vote, vote- it is the sublime subject
For the followers of Marx.
III
Look what this comrade does in his
Mahogony dressing room
On the third floor of his forest-skirted
Lake-side mansion home.
Manicures nails, waxes his moustache
Trims his hair, look now!
His puma-stoned both feet goes into
Crocodile shining shoes.
Do not you wonder whether this comrade
Goes to a fashion show,
No no he’s going to the Communist
Party Committee!
IV
Here comes his office car with state
Flags and state’s sovereign seal,
Salutes the stiff column who’d gladly
Cuffed him but one day.
From somewhere comes a flying egg
Splashing his window screen,
Dripping foul yellow liquid o’er his
Glass, red turns his face.
Police run all ways throwing angry
Furious people back,
And keep the golden-tinted Limousin’s
Tainted glass not breaks.
The director general of police
Canons crowds away,
And okeys his chief minister’s motor-
Cade’s safe move away.
So sit the comrade stiff and still and
Silent in state car,
Thinking how much gold should be smuggled out
International ports
That day and how much cocaine should reach
Cohorts’ stores that day
Spread throughout state, and where to store
The loots of that new day.
V
Here the world for the first time heard that
A communist state
Came to power without shedding blood
Through ballot, not bullet.
Here cocaine communism is coming
To the god’s own country,
Equalizing all people now, for
None can raise their heads.
We’ve heard that communism is a
System for disbursing
Wealth equally among masses, thereby
Bringing socialism;
Here there’s no wealth but cocaine which they
Equally distribute
Among the masses, bringing in
Their kind of socialism.
Where does this cocaine come from, how, to this
Coconut palm land?
The party did it like the Cubans
And the Columbians did,
To drowse the masses and to douse the
Revolutionary flame
So that there they may wallow in a
Corrupt government.
VI
An international crime syndicate
Was exposed here late,
Consisting of such big heads of
Business and industries,
From far and wide countries, continents
From across the sea
Like Luxumburg and Switzerland and
Singapore nearby,
Neetherlands, Belgium not excluded
Came first on the list-
Why flock them all to a distant spicy
Spot, why, all wondered.
Are they there after pepper, coffee,
Or the coconuts
Where they are bound as in the past their
Fathers sailed their ships?
What were they doing in the southernmost
Small state of India,
Resting between the Western Ghats and
The Arabian Sea?
Were selling buses electric to the
Power-short Kerala,
Which never were built but hundred crores of
Dollars changed their hands,
And then the Swiss fled to the north states
Seeking green pastures new,
And Kerala was left with a few in-
Vestigations now.
Came another, Sprinkler, from the distant
Land of stars and stripes,
Stole vital data from the sick and
Sold to the insurance
Companies interested and others
Who paid them well,
Now people find their names and homes and
Wives in internet.
All who came in this stream of inve-
Stors had hearty laugh,
‘Twas the state treasury of the land
Made lighter through their laugh.
VII
There are a hundred ways for a communist
To exploit us
And one among is to approach us
In democratic ways,
For seeking and securing our votes
In the elections, then
Form cabinets, ministries, governments,
To castrate us with,
By taking th’only weapon we have
In a democracy
To put in throne and then dethrone
A retinue of rowdies,
Who smuggle gold through airports guised as
Diplomatic bags
Sent from abroad by governments there
To their forein consulates,
With help of consuls and attaches
Corrupt to the core,
Caressing the rare specimens of the
Fresh hot Asian flesh.
VIII
Break locks and correspond with those
Incarcerated there,
Give guidance as to how to face
Interrogations and
Sing the same tune as directed, in
Cross-trial questions asked,
In short, manipulate the rule of
Law by sheer conceit.
Such feats are basic lessons to the new
Members in party,
Besides forging new documents
To replace th’ones in file.
All taught to perfection by master
Crafters in the ranks
Who were once themselves escapees from
Justice and the law.
If found it impossible to contact
Those inside the jail,
Take elaborate steps to commune
Without going in.
Organize crafty discussions on
Crimes in question by
Building unrelated segments in
Party channel debates
Unquestionably shown in jails when
Party is in power,
And tell what not and what to tell
Through subtle messages,
Where on the whole a spectator will
See a hot debate,
In parts the prisoner sees bold warnings
Written on the screen,
Such as those anchors already unveiled
Are now safe to reveal,
What not already unexposed are still
Unsafe to be released.
IX
Or fabricate a voice message
Of the prisoner in
Rare costly and sophisticated
Software from abroad,
By voice clipping and phonetic
Imitation tricks,
Making the prisoner in the jail tell
She is victimized,
By interrogators asking her
To betray and state
A chief minister or secretary is
Mixed up in the crime,
To put him inside in the jail who
Roams now free outside
Unfettered and protected, is the
Leader of the ring,
And let the voice clip loose into the
Media of the land
To redirect and refocus the
TV channel debates,
And meanwhile lead the deer in jail
What to repeat, what not,
In tomorrows’ interrogations
Without wavering,
And sitting on the fence, tell all the
Central agencies
The captain of the state is one
The least involved in crimes.
Such tricks this party’s well-versed in,
And employs regularly
To teach th’under-trial fugitives
Who bear burden for them.
X
There are a few other communist
Parties in India, they
Fight each other instead fighting against
Corp’rate capital.
Marxist and Leninist and Stalinist
And Trotskyist,
Hard Maoist and Castroist, War
Path and Naxalite-
They have been fighting one another
Decades debating,
For the simple reason of deciding who’s
Greater than the other.
They split and war over puny little
Ridiculous things
But amalgamate, colluse or
Combine in election times.
The only thing they share in common
Is a crimson flag,
And a hammer and a sickle and a
Star on left or right.
The Communist Party of India
Marxist is the big
Shareholder and board member of the
Corporate India.
They have now holdings in almost
All countries in the world
Like the Chinese have in America,
Britain and India.
The Chinese made their fortune after
Ruling their country
So vast for many decades with strict
Discipline, repression.
Their counterparts the Indians made theirs
Ruling no country
But just three states inconspicuously
Small in vast India.
So who is great- the communists in
China or India
In the billion dollar-a-day beat of the
Corporate war world?
This particular Indian party
Followed China long
And learned their lessons well in running
Opium-selling guilds,
Which multiplies their fortunes hundred-
Times with ease, besides
Subsidizing and subjugating
Clashing martial lands.
Because the Russians did not have a
Long and daring past
Of leading people to lethargic
Narcotic state through
Their turbulent times of suppression
And a revolution,
This particular Indian party
Kept away from them.
The only thing they borrowed from the
Russians were some books
And Fascist Stalinist approach to
Their own party’s men.
So flourished this pseudo-communist
Party in India
Like dogs in mangers who will not let
Productive cows to dine.
XI
‘Tis int’resting to note how Marxists
In Nineteen Thirtees
Were formed and grew up, flourished and
Flowered in Kerala.
Where there were evictions then they were
There to protect them,
When there were rapes of daughters those
Landlords were strangled soon.
Where there were disputes on wages
For toils in the fields
There rose rose into the sky red flags and
Fierce slogans soon.
Soon they gained momentum and diverted
Their wonted path,
Encashed their acceptance and popu-
Larity as votes.
We see thus the first government in the
World that came to power
Through ballots, not bullets, first for a
Communist party.
Evicted ages-old forest-dwellers
From their dear steads,
Re-locating them elsewhere, leaving
Landless and homeless.
De-forested their lands and took away
Lumber, granite, rocks,
And whatever that could be turned to cash
Or divided among.
Soon there were massive rock and granite
Quarries coming up
By night, jack hammers and earth movers
Working day and night.
Soon there were eruptions in mountains
And they broke, came down
And fell upon the swelling rivers
There we see the floods,
When people stood neck-deep in flooded
Waters watching round,
Hens, cows, and kettles, household uten-
Sils being washed away.
Those pictures stilled the world, and countries
Rushed their arms to the land
To pick up hapless brothers, sisters
In that unknown land,
And there were money collections in
Far and distant lands
And alms rushed to the spot on special
Ships and charted flights.
The benefactors never knew who were their
Beneficiaries abroad,
And Red-Cross of the Middle-East sent a
Two million fat cheque,
Which soon vanished into some pockets,
And the world never will
Believe who stole their hard-earned gift to a
People in distress.
XII
So many sad things happened in this
Country to which all
This party just were spectators
Taking no people’s side.
They neither condemned nor accused those
Ruthless aggessors,
But profited from everything that’s
Going on in the land.
When first they came to ruling power they
Began much slow and small,
But gradually they grew in conse-
Cutive governments,
And stretched their visions to the higher
Broader realms of sky,
And put to bricks their whopping schemes
As adepts they became.
The game of power became for them
As easy as a breath,
They took to the clout as easy as a
Fish takes to a stream.
Corruption, bribery, kickbacks, family
Favouritism,
Became their face marks and a part of
Daily party life.
Is it such easy for a fish that
Makes clear streams its home
To lurk in muddy harbour waters
Where predators prowl?
XIII
And so many things that barred and blocked the
Normal man’s small life
Happened here by the ascension of a
Central government.
Their protests were just parades of
Impotent party men,
Through deserted and desolated and
Silent city streets,
Where once were people, engaged in their
Lively discussions,
And a thousand other activities
Making day-to-day life.
Their lands were confiscated, houses
Demolished for new
Broad roads devouring miles and miles of
Cultivated fields.
Where paddy fields disappeared and there
Pav’ed highways came,
For the high-speed cars of the abo-
Minably rich to run.
Wherever were two hills with a rivulet
Running in-between
They built a dam to tap the hidden
Power of running stream,
And spent a hundred million from which
Half as soon vanished,
And their generators still there make a
Half megawatt current!
When there were investigations and
Interrogations,
Arrests and prosections and court
Trials and judgments,
They bribed the judge with fifty million
And escaped the jail
And saved the face and prestige of the
Hammer, sickle, star.
Built bridges brittle so when the first
Bicycle crossed it
Collapsed and fell into the river that
Flowed beneath in shame.
XIV
There are many ways for them to make a
Black cat white, one is
To kill and stuff it and paint it in
Brilliant glinting white,
And put on show in party-sponsored
Exhibition halls
With bought-out press reiterating
Never was it black.
Another is to go to inter-
National press and pay
And plant a few articles saying
Never were there black cats,
All written by natives of Kerala
Who are eager to
Secure a seat on the state’s pompous
Snobs’ World Parliament,
So named because if had been named
Kerala’s Parliament
Had faced immediate repercussions
From Indian Parliament,
Besides immediate dismissal and
Prosecution for
Challenging the Constitution of
Th’Indian Republic.
So have they now this World Kerala
Parliament, called in
Their native tongue the Kerala Lok Sabha
For their special missions
Which are to canvass, lobby and spy in
Foreign capitals
For Marxists and their government by non-
Residents domicile there.
So one day they will all be de-ported
And expelled from there
When those vigil governments begin in-
Vestigations on
Deals financial and traitrous like the
United Emiretes
Of th’Arabs now does after their Con-
Sulate was defiled.
So these representatives of the
Communists now roam
World capitals for information
Useful for their lot,
And disseminating doctored news
Misleading the world press,
So now we have their flattering articles
Appear in Times,
And even BBC and others
Have to their credit
Articles praising Marxist Kerala
Health and finances.
All believed these represented the
Indian Parliament,
Dazzled by excellently printed
Exotic call cards!
Do not they want to know there’s but one
Indian Parliament,
Besides state legislative assemblies
Thirty in the states?
How can some unelected people
Represent a state,
And cheat the world press and governments
Wholesale through conceit?
XV
We have heard mystic saint Attar in
The Telfth Century
Writing about a Birds’ Parliament
In the Persian tongue,
Which our dear Edward FitzGerald trans-
Lated in English
So beautifully that still we remember him
For this Indian work;
But who will chronicle all mischiefs,
Representatives
Of this Spies’ Parlimament did in world
Capitals through th’years,
Now that their masters and their control
Centres in India
Are broken and are facing charges of
Treason and sabotage
Of country, and of smuggling gold from
Cities as Dubai
And so many other destinations
Where they have kingpins,
Firm-rooted in businesses and in-
Dustries there, to the tune
Of turning year-and year after many
Billions of Dollars,
In Pounds and Sterlings, Dinars, Riyals,
Yen and Euros and
Greens, newly printed Indian Rupees
Container-freighted?
Their rings broken and dens raided by
Central agencies
Of India, searching narcotics and
Gold and stashed cash stocks,
All exposed and bared naked to the
Skin, their money hoards
Stacked and stashed away even in churches
Taken all away,
From underground garages, cars, rooms
Deeper still below,
From apartments and pent-house suits and
Even hotel rooms,
From corporate offices, medical
Hospitals and schools,
Many nursing institutions, bank vaults,
Lockers and hidden rooms.
A nexus of religious men and
Revolutionaries stood
Exposed, and open to the elements with
Nothing on their skin.
Their networks, distribution channels
Trembled like a calf
At the sudden appearance of hungry
Lions before them.
Their captains and commanders fled to
Safe distant havens,
After ‘setting fire to travel records
And consignment notes
From airports, contract forms and logs and
Money transfer deeds,
And foreign dignitaries’ registers
In government buildings,
Executed all antiscepti-
Cally by their own
Teams of forensic experts brought from
Abroad from their staff,
And said farewell to Trivandrum and
Kerala, dismantling
Their local headquarters for a time, to
Meet in next government,
Leaving their rings to face the music
In Kerala jails,
Or live in constant fear of when would
Everything surface.
XVI
Have anyone heard a communist
Party chief anywhere
Ban freedom of press, and treat questions
As dire denigrations,
In a small tiny state inside a big
Democracy in world,
Where One point three billion people
Live in thirty states,
And issuing orders criticizing
Him a state crime, for
He is the state and none but him can
Question him, so folks
Ask, ‘so you are the state crime? Whole world
Knows the Malayalis
Are an int’resting people, making
The whole world their home,
Industrious, loyal, steadfast, friends
To cross the rivers with,
Who lives in every country of the
Planet making friends,
But if some mean and selfish thing
Orders them, come hither,
They will tell, go and ask your sire, or
Go to hell your way.
So one by one this communist fiend
Lost his followers,
Except those selling drugs on streets, some
Cut-throats and liars,
Whom he made state ministers in his
Kitchen cabinet-
All thugs and people-haters always
With a shady past,
Selected special for the posts
Important in the state-
So will do any dirty work
Assigned and be grateful
For remaining outside prisons, also
Walking as free men,
And even saluted by police
And even jail-men.
So these were his advisers he
Surrounded himself with,
And commanded as his own special
Legions of the night.
XVII
I am not writing history, but
Poetry my friends,
So there’s no need for checking facts
And defamation case,
For now our friends the comrades are
Embarking on a new
Trip into the unknown oceans in their
Bark and reed-made boats,
Like those the ancient Peruvians
Undertook in their
Fragile reed boats to reach the Poly-
Nesian Islands,
Seeking eternal re’venge like th’one the
Satan undertook
On his eternal foe for creating a
Lovely new planet
Somewhere among the distant realms of
The vast cosmic world,
And imitated a paradise there for
Man to live quiet
And happy and satisfied in his
Creature comforts bare
Without ambitions biases in that
Kerala Paradise,
Where mountains on one side protect them,
On the other side the
Arabian Sea guards, and all rivers
Run from East to the West,
But how will this beast put up with such
Peace and calm and quiet,
So now he’s and his comrades trave-
Lling in canoes are,
With heads full of majestic and grand
Unrealistic dreams
Of making all rivers run east,
Drying the ocean west,
Intent on unsettling this little
Paradise on earth,
And setting on fire the peaceful quiet
Life of Keralites.
His son was sentenced and sent jail for
Cocain financing,
His daughter incarcerated for
Fraudulent foreign deals.
So when one’s relatives and dear ones
All are sent to jail
And now it is certain that himself-
Is the next to go,
It’s natural to think about
Putting all people there,
And take one’s grand revenge on them before
Joining them there,
But people are thinking, why should they
All go into prison,
Instead of enjoying the choice of
Sending him alone.
So intent on winning the race in
Narrow margins, he
Invented a way to put people
All in prisons soon.
XVIII
The Indian Constitution offers
‘Freedom of speech to all,
And freedom of expression and
Freedom for criticism,
Which almost touches margins and
Limits of individual
Abuse and defamation, but the
Indian Supreme Court
Found freedom of expression paramount-
Above anything else,
And struck article sixty six-a
Down and all state laws,
And acts, and statutes, orders, amendments
Based on sixty-six,
Found Draconian and devilish in this
Democratic world.
We are sure this disciple of the
Devil, and hanger-on
Of everything draconian, anti-
Democratic and fiendish,
A strict follower of whatever is
Mischievous in the land,
And partisan and admirer of all
Anti-human moves,
Will sure select the path of bringing
Draconian laws
Back, and re-creating the extinct
Defamation laws,
Which Supreme Court scrapped and warned against
Making them again
In one of the fine countries in the
Democratic world,
Which indeed he did, with the help of
A spell-bound governor,
Who lying in his bath-tub in his
Governmental mansion
Five thousand miles away from his own
Safe and secure home,
Wondering how unsafe his life is
In this land of thugs,
Called out: what these, what are these now
Coming one after th’other,
Ordinances? Please wait, please wait,
Till I put on some clothes.
XIX
You may have heard Television Live
Channel Discussions,
This is a Live Poetry Discourse
You are going through,
Which always is tried to be update,
And contemporary,
And tell what’s going on all around, as
Events are unfolding.
You may not ask, where do I get these
Words for poems from,
I steal them from the lips of people
Speaking in the streets,
Of long lost homes confiscated by
Banks and governments,
For loans unpaid when they lost jobs and
Lives in retrenchments
Following liberalization, selling-
Out of massive firms,
Factories, airports, shipyards, railways
Once the country’s pride,
Of ever-lost citizenships in great
Register enlistments,
Of monetizations and money
Freezes that wrecked them,
When daughters could not be married away-
‘They took their own lives,
And sons who could not find anywhere a
Job jumped into the stream.
You tell me when my country is burning
Won’t my words be hot?
You tell me why I should fear anyone when
I too go away?
So you’ll not see here fancy words
Or stray imag’nations,
Or vain ornamental speech, décor
And nothing but truth.
We all may someday wiped out in a
Virus outbreak soon,
So why fear telling truth and dot it
Down? This our last chance
To tell our coming generations
What did they do to us?
We too will descend into the dust
Tomorrow or today,
With or without a decent burial
As we see around,
In massive graves or lonely spots
Benaeath our beloved sky,
Or crowded city lots, or plateaus
Near our dear river,
Or even buried with none left, time
Has to tell it yet.
So why fear anyone? They can never
Touch us again or catch,
They too will be beside us there, I
Hope, a little far.
XX
….
Will continue….
Began to be written and first published as serial on: 18 November 2020
Tags:
...
About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran:
Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.
Editor
of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several
books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The
Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village
of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala.
Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University
educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in
Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in
Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single.
Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/psremeshchandra.trivandrum
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSRemeshChandra
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com
Post:
P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam,
Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.
Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.
