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I Give You the Bullet Train – Badri Raina

BADRI RAINA
I give you the Bullet train

Are you hungry, are you in pain?
Come, I’ll feed you the bullet train.

Have you no roof over  your head?
Are you directly under the rain?
Come, jump into the bullet train.

Are you on foot, pursued apace
By  rapist, moralist, policeman’s cane?
Just one way to cheat them all–
Ride away in the bullet train.

The bullet train is quick and fast,
It leaves behind the ugly things
In such rapid tryst with development,
You’d think they never did exist.

Are you a farmer with noose in hand,
About to end your endless pain,
Consider a patriotic   move–
Go under the bullet train

 Dr Badri Raina is a distinguished commentator on politics, culture and society. A Fulbright Scholar and PhD from Madison, Wisconsin, Prof 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, essays and translations to his credit.