I Look Around and WONDER

If you are reading this account,
you would have either witnessed it yourself or read about such times as they existed in the past,
or as the worst case can be - you never wondered as 'wonder' is dead.

As I walk(ed) around in the society (of humans only) as it exists (existed) in the 21st century,
As I live(d) as a species so obsessed with self-preservation as to cast it into the cause of its own annihilation,
As I look around a world too large to fathom its minisculeness,
and as I survive through a time of its own kind,
I look around and wonder - what all is dead?

Dead is the Age of Thought and Thoughtfulness
as man has learnt to make man a machine.

Dead is the Ability to let Nature take its course,
as man has learnt to alter currents to meet his current goals.

Dead is the Need to be Righteous or Rational
as man has built a world where money matters the most.

Dead is the Age of Spontaneity
as the institution of market determines every human thought.

Dead is the Rational Human Being
that lived among the likes of Aristotle and was chased by Russel (Bertrand),
as rationing is done today to merely exercise a choice
among available options
that are pre-determined and provided to us
by a system
whose paramount goal
is a mere
self-preservation.

Dead is Change,
for change is radical
and the only piece of change that survives
is the change of fashions.

Dead is Imagination and Wonder,
as all humanity is engaged in absorbing
only the evolving technology.

Dead is God
as only Religion survives in this age,
which permits
only a unidirectional communication
from God(smen).

Dead is the Habit or the Talent to Question,
as human society views questions
as Revolt, Sedition, Blasphemy or Slander.

Dead is Hope Beyond Self-Aggrandisation
as dead are the people
who thought of 'oughts' and 'what ifs'
and all that remains is
'what all' and 'what more'.

Oh, I look around and wonder....
if man was a rational animal,
living among the lesser irrational beings,
if man really had the talent to wonder and imagine and question,
if man had the ability to direct the course of his own development,
if man was a social being and could form and evolve as a society -
I wonder how things could go so wrong....
so wrong..
that freedoms are stifled and rights are limited
and the only absolute unlimited pure truth
is the existence of a market led state
that poses for the poor and works for the rich,
that speaks of humanism and acts for capitalism,
that guarantees rights of freedoms of thought, expression and conscience
but is the greatest threat of them all.

I look around and find a system of collaboration
between sets of few individuals who connive against the rest,
oblivious of the fact that the loss of all can not except the dearth for the few.
the powerful few show the rest the path to rise above their peers
and the masses, in the hunger of more and more power for their selves,
fight neck to neck to rise up the ladder,
the powerful watch the social fabric crumble,
as every man attempts to put his feet upon the head of another.

Oh, I look around and wonder - Marx, are you dead?
Oh, I look around and moan the final death of Gramsci.

I look around and wonder...

Dead is the age of Romanticism
with the ideas of Ideals.

Dead is the league of men
who declared
elitism, brahminism and sanscritisation
as the enemy.

Dead is the Age of Consciousness
as dead are Vivekanand, Ambedkar and Gandhi.

I look around and wonder...
when did it all happen, when did it all die?

Is a thought dead
till the time there is a single mind that beholds the idea
or a single book that contains it for future generations?

I look around and wonder,
may be it is a Phase....
and a phase shall pass for another to come.

I look around and wonder,
if I shall be privileged to see a better age
or make way for it to come for sure...

I look around and wonder....