The Rice Remembers.....

Sometimes some photographs go viral on the Net. One such is this photograph of a feast cooked for a son-in-law in Vijaywada, which I saw posted.  Must have been for some festival , where it is mandatory to go ballistic in variety and quantities..

So appropriate for the times we live in, where quality is relegated to the back seat while quantity blatantly rules.

And naturally , there was a message in it all.  (So many rice types, vada types, roti types, salad types, pickle types, daal types, farsan types etc etc ......  I refuse to count)

(Somehow , I have doubts about the fellow finishing it all.  If he did, who helped him get up? And if he didn't, what a waste it was , my countrymen !)

Over valued
Over lauded
Garlanded,
Landed,
Installed at great cost,
with so many falling
all over the vadas and payasams
to get a good seat
perhaps
on the stage.

He arrives
at the Plantain Leela Grounds,
with his
tired general secretaries
and takes his place on the stage
to give a speech.

And the simple
unadorned faithful rice,
now sitting solo
in the centre,
a permanent member of the audience
at meetings for so many years
says,
"So many special categories,
with so many assigned places,
each in a tussle with
the other,
to capture the attention
of their benefactor.
Whatever happened to the days,
when
Sambar, Rasam, Dahi,
sat with me,
along with
Pachadi and Vada,
teasing the Payasam,
and we enjoyed
meeting the leader
when
he was hungry ?"

And the little tumbler of water,
waved at the beer,
and said,
"Aiiyo,
today they are hungry,
but it isn't for food.....
how powerful you are
is defined
by how much you an waste...."