An Indo-Us Nuclear Kid Poem by A. Jayaprakash Jayaprakash Panicker

An Indo-Us Nuclear Kid

Rating: 4.8


An Indo-US nuclear kid
Jayaprakash A. Panicker Kovilloor

This is plain stupid, dad
People defecate on the road.
It is okay, it’s India my kid
Millions do so in this land.

Dad, see that boy in the sun out there in rags
Who begs and beseeches from car to cabs?
This is the way some of us grow up here
Their number is not small either dear.

See some streets where women show faces
What do they all do there together, dad?
It is a matter of ‘fact’ and a kind of trade
Which is the oldest and so commonplace.

Is it true, here kids die before they are born?
You are right, not all kids but the female ones.
How the hell do the people do it my dad?
Some moms ‘still’ it, some docs make them still born.

They say India is shining, my dad, yes?
Yes, yes, yes, dear, it shines in the rich.
But my dear child, er, or. alright, come fast
But what is it dad, tell me, what is that?

No, no. We are very well off in our US dear
It’s a short stint; you know what we are in for?
Your grandpa is sinking; we need to be near.
Forget about these, we fly off in the near future.

See, they hold some placards and US, US they shout
Oh, that is about a deal, I will tell you in short.
It is a set up which, they say, will eradicate
Whatever is not shining the way they expect.

Then what is this one two three dad?
Oh, it is just like our abcd my kid.
One is for ‘once and for ever’
Two is for ‘no two are equal’
And three is for? ..and three is for?
Three is for ‘third world order’.

You are, of course, an Indo-US nuclear dad.

29.8.8/8.30pm

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Brian Jani 09 June 2014

Im a fan of this poem

0 0 Reply
Samanyan Lakshminarayanan 22 September 2009

written some time back...the shining people have gone...US too in recession...lovely poem

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Chitra - 30 August 2008

an absolute hard hitting write I can relate it to so much I used to ask the same questions to my dad when I stepped into our land from a foreign land. these congealing questions really have no answer, but the dad in your poem handles them crisply.

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