Some rhyme. Some reason

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Rakhi mountain high
KRITI Sanon got flak
No one cutting her slack
She wore a bra
While celebrating her bro
Tying a rakhi
But she blew back
Ms Ranaut and her mouth
Every festival
Someone takes offence
Ministers looking for their minutes of fame
Trying to get the attention of their party
Threaten violence
Ads pulled off the air
More concern for a neckline
Than a poverty line
The bottom line
And so, till next Karva Chauth
Or Diwali
Or Raksha Bandhan
Some advertiser will cross a line
In the minds of bigots
Trolls on a payroll
Sentiments hurt
Ads will be withdrawn
Till next time when
Tradition is traversed
Hate is alive and well

Messi leaves
Lionel Messi
the GOAT
Bids adieu
Ciao Leo
Is he the best?
The greatest ever?
Over Maradona, over Pele
Over Platini, over Ronaldo?
But he was loved
In the streets of Buenos Aires,
In the stadia of Bombay
In Bengal, in Barca.
Lionel Messi
Pocket-sized dynamo
King-sized dynamism
Ciao Leo
Always jiyo

Cry the beloved Nepal
Nepal, Nepal
Tears, tragedy, tumult
Landslide
Glacier
Ice, flood
Rock, ice, avalanche
Nature picking on you
Tectonic plates
Tech can't predict
What will befall you next?
A nation along a fault line
No fault of their's
Vulnerable
The gap between alertness and action
Needs to be addressed
Nepal. Stay strong.

The A to Z of Gen Z
You've shaken a nation
An establishment
You have this sense of self
A fearlessness
Social media outweighs social graces
You've been quiet for awhile
Caught up in just getting ahead
And then you exploded
Your own anarchy
Don't placate us
Don't talk down to us
Learn the lingo
Educate yourself on empathy
Uncles, listen hard
We will overthrow you
We will overpower you
Laughable attempts have been made
To reach out to us
Its ‘obvio' you don't have a clue
Beat us, tear-gas us, pellet us
No effect
We can be frustrating
We're not just resilient
We're not just rebellious
We're not just revolutionary
We're just frankly fed up
Of inactivity
Of claims of better days
Of unemployment
Of empty promises
Of lectures
Get it together
Or you know where you'll find us
On the streets, that's where

Neville D'Souza
They wanna shut down another open space
Close down a football ground
A plot of land
A sinister plot
A land grab
Where will young players go?
The stench of darkened halls
Deals being struck
Instead of a football
Files being passed
Instead of a football
What's the goal?
To sell the city?

Mundhe on the prowl
From roadside dabbas to
Restaurants
Cafes to clubs
No nonsense
No expired food
No analogue
No artificial
No nothing if it's not fresh
Tukaram Mundhe
From Monday to Sunday
He's always open to closing it down

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, filmmaker and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com