After doing their Ph.Ds. on
The small-small things of Indian Englsih poetry
Start calling themselves poets and critics, essayists and reviewers.
Is it not a laughing matter that the small scholar registered on Indian poetry
Under a small ragged supervisor of substandard poetry,
After doing his or her Ph.D. copiously
Calling a glittering star of the firmament
Of the Indian Englsih poetry of absent critics.
All thgose sly and foxy Indian research students of Indian English poetry,
Getting tips from their nondescript guides
On nondescript and ramshackle poets and poeteses
Just one or two collections of poems to their credit authors,
Never to found and searched, the whereabouts unknown.
The researchers themselves go to the authors’ houses,
Ask them to help personally
And the anonymous writers, I mean not so publicized
Oblige them otherwise
By giving notes and summaries
Of their poems and works.
And those research students after getting the tips,
On coming to the implied, stipulated absence
Of the competent authority,
Start calling themselves critics in absentia,
How can it be?
The ragged men as supervisors on derivative, imitative slender stuffs,
The ragged men scholars
And the ragged men as critics,
All in the hunt for greener pastures,
I mean the mediocre scholars.