Enough was said about how they would not engage
with any deputation which included investigative people,
and that is fine with me since I serve only at your behest.
And hereunder is an unbiased, experiential farcical report:
There must be something about the beverage options
that I don’t quite understand because several people
grinned and chuckled when I told them of my destination,
with some light admonition not to drink the KoolAid there.
My first act on arrival was to kiss the ground on which I stood
my first foray to the Motherland, the fountainhead of Man,
with reverence to history’s vicissitudes, there I was in Exxoyana,
snuggled in the heart and bosom of the continent of Africa.
Everyone that greeted me and even those who quizzed me
airline agents, immigration officers, customs and security,
all seemed to have one defining strand in common:
all had the DNA of Africa, perhaps even more than me.
There were dozens of outriders and official looking cars
to take an important person to his homestead in the city,
flashing lights and thunderous sounds cleared the roads
except for the roadside strays that shared a passing bray.
I asked a taxi driver to take me to his country’s leader.
He took me directly to Alex Steer, the emperor of Exxoyana
whom I could swear was white even through the petroview.
The natives were all patriots, save for a few at KaiShore Mews.
The highlight of my fact finding mission about racial inequalities
was when the waters parted, and a man in a saffron shirt appeared.
With a shine-shaved head, I thought that he was a Buddhist monk
but instead of a begging bowl, he carried a blessing cup from which
he doled out a drop of oil to strangers, polychromatically assorted,
in a ratio of forty, thirty, twenty, ten, nought, nihility and zero.
Someone took me to a bottom house, a bhandari, I think he called it
where the man whose picture was on every wall in every building
was cooking duck curry for every one who ever set foot in the country.
With so many ducks curried, I asked what happened to all the feathers
and they explained that since they had a border conflict with a neighbor
they used the feathers to stuff and reinforce the border walls.
Despite the official non-engagement I was welcome everywhere I went.
Welcome signs and banners; and articles and letters to the editors
hailed visitors from the promised states, signed by people with names like
Persaud, Singh, Ali, Khan, Lall, and dozens with suffixes of something deo.
Unlike how Nikki said of Swami R Vivek, “you are scum”,
these folks, with a tender tweak of mispronunciation,
have a similar expression that is a term of endearment.
Men call each other, women call their husband’s friends,
everyone calls the emperor, followied closely by the monk,
and a few have even called me, though I modestly must demur,
this term of endearment, where the “m” is pronounced as “nt”.
So, first, the only thing that matters: their oil is in the safest hands;
racial parity and equality, democracy and such-like – maybe.
Clearly, more study and advisement is required to make a call
but remember I am always ready to revisit and respond
to any reverberations or new concerns emanating from their oil.
I thank you for this junket for which no taxpayers’ funds were used
but please donate to me, as if the core of democracy depend on it.
I am your humble and obedient servant, purveyor of all you want,
your steadfast fighter for racial justice, in this, God’s greatest land.
Tulsi Dyal Singh, MD.