Sane Insane?

Sane Insane?


Ganga Prasad G. Rao
http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar



What is sanity? A state of mind?
Behavior consistent with society's norms
and expectations of the inferiors?
Following traditions of the majority
going about the routine timidly,
unobtrusively and unnoticed
so not to raise the ire of households,
neighbors or the powers that be?
Accepting established rules and institutions
stacked against the commons?
Disappearing and dissolving in to the multitudes
of those gone by, in to an oblivion of the ordinary?

And, pray, what is insanity?
Unmitigated, unexpressed frustration
against injustice – stark yet private, gory yet informal;
Anger at denials and insults umpteen
attempts on life, mail fraud, forgery, intimidation
IPR theft, smoking, gassing, witch craft, you name it?
Outrage against relatives
who sold out to enrich themselves
while snaring the family deeper in web?
Fighting every stone cast by neighbors
while living in the glasshouse of an 'executive test'
one did not volunteer for?
Writing one's diary, regurgitating memory,
(even mutterings to oneself to 'register' thoughts and ideas
that would otherwise get smoked out)
before the MNC-CIA combine could get to it,
pry in to your life, your bedroom,
even your memory and preferences
and have the mafia blackmail you,
sift and screen your future,
or whatever is left of it
until finally, all that remains
is an unrecognizable shadow of yourself,
one you wouldn't recognize in the mirror
and you voluntarily step away
from a career among the stars?

Ain't it easy to pull down a dark horse
a genius who dared to dream
the American dream and made it,
but for cold-blooded machinations
of those with an ulterior ideology?
(Not so fast, smart ass!)
Ain't it easier, I reckon,
to bump an ace, show him a failure,
a spy, impotent, even insane
than “suck up” and invite him
with a Mercedes for a signing bonus?
Ain't it easy to delay and force him in to penury
until his work and qualifications lose relevance
and he begs again for a job on his fours?

So I have decided
that in this perverted world of opposites
it wiser to be insane
than follow in the serpentine of the sanes.
Wish me luck as I trudge against the grain,
a lonely soldier, a rebel if you will
in the war against status quo
a war for truth and justice, for opportunity,
an insane voice in the sea of the sanes!