I

You gave me

The password of laughing, of crying,

Of living, of dying,

Of using and getting used

And I became human.

II

Now I live in the e-universe

Breathe e-air

No more believing in its naturalness

When I take the air in

Release it out

I can’t figure out when it turns into a breath

The same way, when I slide over

From space into cyberspace

Crowing like a rooster

Trying to reach

The given address

I don’t find you there

One more relationship

Dragged out and shoved

Into junk mail

Oil on canvas by PRAMATHESH CHANDRA

III

You are my e-language

You are my e

I am because you are

If you were not, I wouldn’t be

I have a culture

Because you exist

I would have no culture

If you did not exist

IV

If your cultural gown

Is lifted up in the global air

I poke my finger into your navel

I don’t smell any sweat there

But it gives me a culture shock

And tipsily

I dance to your beat

Now my own gown is lifted up too

And my umbilical cord

Entangled in e

V

I used to visit the Katodi settlement

Bring back with me tamarind, mangoes,

And cashew apples, karvanda berries

Used to shoot down birds with a slingshot

And leaving my school bag on the riverbank

Took a blissful dip in the river

How alive was I then!

That, as though unrisen, now am I debarred?

Now I am deep into this forest of computer software

Where I search for the world

Search for my culture in a dotcom

And while speeding past in a car

Applaud the India dot com hoarding from the flyover

There still remain people with holes in their undershirts

Wearing broken slippers and with tin pots
filled with water

Squatting in public by the railway tracks

This is India

Great

A twenty by thirty advertisement of my
culture

Simply brilliant

VI

Gawking at them I bump into the ‘e’s

e-mail internet e-commerce e-banking

India dot com, USA dot net,

Mumbai information dot com

Hungama dot com, Yahoo dot com, Chaipani dot com,

Khujli dot com, Gandmasti dot com et cetera

This global market

Invades homes

One for two, one for two,

Sell your old mobile at the price of the new

Buy a Maruti at your own price

Visit the site, hit the jackpot,

On sex dot com the cultural confluence of black and white

Free lifelong e-service

Free address and 10 MB space

Put anything to bed in your 10 MB

Send this e-mail to ten recipients and be happy!

If you can’t send it, be miserable

No more assholes, no more assholes

Mumbai bandh, work bandh

Taaza Khabar

Tomorrow’s news NOW

Log on

e-ads e-culture e-virus e-corruption

e-illness here n’ there, here n’ there

e e e e

And Hemant Dayanand Divate

Belongs to no one any more

He belongs to the e-universe

And here too he gets waylaid and screwed

But he hardly lets out an ‘e’ from his mouth

He utters, ‘Aai-ee ga!’ — O Mama Mia!