Two vintage middle classics by Badri Raina


Hippopotamus

The new Indian middle class
is full of pelf and prayer;
it ogles at the fop in front,
and quarantines its rear.

The new Indian middle class
is full of potato chip;
it hogs away at restaurant,
but is careful with the tip.

The new Indian middle class
means business every way;
it will have the atom bomb,
whatever you may say.

The new Indian middle class
is cross at population;
it simply cannot undersatnd
why people live in the nation.

The new Indian middle class
is bored by argument;
argument so upsets
its vacuous content.

The new Indian middle class
connects with tradition;
it often needs to fly abroad
to propagate that fashion.

The new Indian middle class
is a hippopotamus;
it fattens on protected feed,
and yawns at politics.

Hippopotamus revisited

The new Indian middle class
is into Channel V,
where V stands for vertigo
and viscerality.

The new Indian middle class
drives to disco tune,
It sees nothing upon the road
except its good fortune.

The new Indian middle class
is full of stock and share;
it packs globalised machismo
in Philips underwear.

The new Indian middle class
is Pentium perfect;
Its E-Mail carries latest news
of when and where to eat.

The new Indian middle class
is glued to one-dayer;
it despises Parliament
but is buoyed by Tendulkar.

The new Indian middle class
marries in farm houses,
where poor relations never reach,
and whisky drowns all grouses.

The new Indian middle class
is too busy to  visit;
when parents lie in ICU
Archies Card does it.

The new Indian middle class
uses language like hammer,
it has no use for critical thought,
nuance, complexity, grammar.

The new Indian middle class
will surely take us far,
from hauteur, humbug, heartlessness
to bloody civil war.

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