Seven thousand years before they
Could properly light a spark
With stones, we had aeroplanes.
The crafts  flew invisible-spiritual,
Carrying  realized rishis across
Galaxies, leaving neither body
Nor wreck in sight, only emanations;
Alas, that in modern times  that ancient
Marvel  came to be sold as Star Trek,
Wherein conjured  imitations fly
To  fake stations and false destinations.
Woe that  soon after, five thousand
Years ago, we had a loss of brains;
The Congress Party came to power,
And lost us all our  timeless gains.
One after the other, invaders  rode
Across our sanaatan land, and
We had no planes left to fight
Off the horde. Did I hear you say
That there was no Congress Party
Till 1885?  Well, there you again,
Distorting history to suit the leftist brain.
The fact is that five thousand years ago,
Nehru compromised our nuclear
Stockpiles with pompous call
To non-alignment and non-proliferation.
Thus, when the bearded marauders
With drawn scimitars descended upon
Our plains, we had no bombs left
To  exterminate their generation.
Thus is the Congress guilty not just
Of  enslaving us but importing untouchability.

The Internationalist Nehru did one
Other heinous thing: in his noblesse
Of vision, he palmed off Pythagoras
To the primitive Greeks, leaving Bharat
Bereft of  mathematics for thousands
Of weeks, till our Saffron Science
Went into huddle, and brought back
The planes, the Pi, the Pythagoras,
The nuclear know-how back into
Currency out of the Congress muddle.

If you look closely with transcendent eye,
You may see the Wright brothers
Craning their necks  askance at the Saffron
Congress, acknowledging how their
1903 feat was rottenly filched from
Vedic texts, and how in fact, they
Had been incarnations of  two
Eight thousand year old  Brahmin  saints,
Carrying in their genes secrets
Pertaining to  engines and aeroplanes.

But back we are now to ancient glory;
So let history yield to  a fabled story,
Shaming pedestrian fact and pariah
Reason, inaugurating a wondrous,
A magical, a  nationalist season.

Badri Raina

Badri Raina is a well-known commentator on politics, culture and society. His columns on the Znet have a global following. Raina taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is the author of the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. He has several collections of poems and translations. His writings have appeared in nearly all major English dailies and journals in India.