The Land Of Pluralism

Did you say India is the land of pluralism?—
You said right.
Where else but here do liars and truth tellers,
Fascists and democrats, secularists
And communalists, purists and pretenders,
Princes and lackeys, ideologues
And opportunists, peaceniks and warmongers,
Egalitarians and casteists, feminists
And patriarchs, chauvinists and internationalists,
Ancient centuries and modern technologies,
Pravachans and unprincipled nuggets
Of practical wisdom, high exegeses of scripture
And low sectarian cunning,
Acts of caring and gross other acts of neglect,
Animal lovers and animal killers,
Loyalists and rationalising turncoats,
Nature protectors and profiteering marauders,
Cocooned high rises and elemental shanties,
Extollers of parents and those that chain
Them out of sight, idolaters of goddesses
And tormentors of women, child lovers
And child beaters, doyens of abstraction
And their petty acts of hate and exclusion—
Where else but here can you find
Accommodation so comprehensive,
Indifference so large, philosophers so
Willing and ready to cater to every profitable
Wish, or every favourable wind?
And ultra-equipped electronic channels
In cut-throat competition to sell
The dictator in season?
Does India contradict itself?
What if it does; its sages knew from
Sanaatan aeons that all
Is post-modernist, nothing is true.
Thus success will come only if
You do as you do do.