Shail brings to light the dangers of hair surgeries done by quacks, bemoans the death of
innumerable parrots in Jhansi, and mock the chic tag that the commonplace jhola has acquired abroad, exclusively for Different Truths.
Alopecia surgery gone berserk
Better to be bereft of hair
than life laid miserably bare.
Better to be balding
than a flesh-eating bacteria tormenting.
A hair transplant in Kochi
transformed a personality –
improving exercise into
a trauma for life.
Yellow spots oozing discharge
on head left the man emotionally dead.
A hair-increasing surgery
brought with it side effects
that left the man filled with regret.
Better bare than filled with financial debt.
Surgery after surgery left the man
wounded for life, filled with strife.
The clinic closed, FIR filed
but, damage done.
For some quacks, it was just
a money-building scamish fun.
Thinning hair or no hair
better than a lifetime of misery
was the lesson learnt
too late for some.
So, balding folks,
Beware!
My heart is like a singing bird
Where we reside isn’t our own.
Flying parrots, for humans' faults
have to atone.
The land of the Rani of Jhansi
recently witness to a war of
another kind, a gruesome sight
which even warriors cannot fight.
Green, lovely parrots victim
to storm and heavy rain,
with human lives, they too lie
dead, voiceless, unmoving
in fields and drains.
If human death wasn’t enough,
the demise of the affectionate
bird friends send signals
of calamity and cost of carelessness.
If only the parrots knew
that mimicking the voice of humans
would come with such a heavy price
they would rather have squawked away.
My feathered therapist lies lost.
His voice I yearn to hear.
Oh Nature, what have you done to my dear?!
Lil Jhola, a chic brand
The common man’s all time friend
discriminated by the fashionably elite
branded and sold today like a mobile suite.
What was once a commonplace commodity
now adorns the online shelves as
an Indian Souvenir Bag.
What is with this fancy tag?
You wouldn’t catch a person
this generation dead or alive
with this old-fashioned accessory
of provision shopping
and yet,
it’s being sold at a price
so exorbitant that you realize
no wonder, the Nepali rapper
heads music charts with the name
Lil Jhola!
Selling like hotcakes, a chic bag,
many people at home
wondering now how to sell their
grandma’s errand bag into a fortune.
Branded globally, stamped with
foreign approval, will people
now use it unashamedly?
Yours sincerely.
References:
Picture design Anumita Roy
Shail Raghuvanshi is a poet, freelance journalist, copyeditor, voice actor, and artist with 30 years of experience in various media. She has worked as the Cultural Correspondent for India’s first integrated media company, PLUS Channel, and has written course material for Madurai Kamaraj University’s Post Graduate Programme in Advertising and Public Relations. She has also been a coach of Communicative English. She has published poems, short stories, and articles in leading magazines and anthologies.
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