Father, we have sinned

For you,

The preambular values and Article 21 have been binned.

 

As a society, we take selective outrage

A journalist, yes

Yet, denial of a sipper and straw is not met with enough umbrage.

 

Your case may be under the UAPA, with the NIA prosecuting

I say!

Does that justify such a denuding?

 

Delay defeats justice

Is known to all alike

But for you, the judiciary is cold as ice.

 

A humanitarian request is not entertained

For want of

A reply to your plaint.

 

I am instantly reminded of a picture

Adorning the High Court at Panaji

Depicting a chain around legal scriptures.

With anguish, I propose one addition

Nay, an amendment

Clarifying that in our legal system, there’s no place for your kind of petition.

 

Does no one understand – the only lock that a straw can pick

Is what unshackles

A monster who makes our Constitution and conscience sick.

 

If this is the way we treat our octogenarians,

I ask myself,

Is there any place for my generation?

 

However, be rest assured that your struggle for a sipper and a straw

Will not go down in history,

And equate you to a man of straw.

 

For Father, while we have sinned

In your case,

Only the devil has grinned.

 

(Rohan Deshpande practices as a Counsel in the Bombay High Court and writes on law and current affairs. The views are personal.)