All Hail The Global Modern

By Apoorva Lakshmi Ragi

Is there a place in this homogeneous world

To be you

To embody what it means to be you

To be part of your culture and tribe

For we seek solely the self

To survive

We gave up the village

We gave up the tribe

We may give up the nuclear

To pursue goals

As individual

We seek not to birth and parent

Yet another burden of life

But adopt

Lives that wouldn't be born

If not for atrocities of man

Is there a place in this homogeneous world

To be you

To embody what it means to be you

To be part of your culture and tribe

For we seek semblances with self

To belong

We gave up the name

We gave up the ancestry

We gave up the bits of our person

To be easy to read

Or a Mashup unique

Than bear the name that speaks

Of your place

For even having surname became discrimination or privilege

Even if name meant mere inheritance of words

Is there a place in this homogeneous world

To be you

To embody what it means to be you

To be part of your culture and tribe

For we seek constructs and corporations 

To thrive

We gave up indic tradition

We gave up indigenous knowledge systems

We gave up time tested wisdom

To sell into global modern

That is a Quagmire

You cannot get out of

For it is played by the big fish

To whom you are just fry

But a money machine

In a skewed power dynamic

Is there a place in this homogeneous world

To be you

To embody what it means to be you

To be part of your culture and tribe

For we seek concrete jungles

To have quality of life

We gave up the forests and oceans

We gave up the valleys and plains

We gave up the coasts and rocks

To be the 'mainland'

Where you drink toxic water

Eat poisoned food

Breathe in fumes as air 

And be part of an unsustainable system

That you cannot rely on

For you fail as it inevitably shall

By Apoorva Lakshmi Ragi