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Performance Appraisal

by Gayathri Devi Dutt
(Bangalore, Karnataka, India)

Moments after your birth
Your profile is generated
So you hang on to it
Till the end of your life

The profile is akin to the Aadhar card
Defines the obligations from birth to death
Even the obsequies post-death
Despite the errors and vagueness

The user derives the power to customise the profil
Customisation is customary and foggy
Questions the realities of life that manifests
In the state,community,household and market

One such leaflet from the profile was caste
Backward or forward, who dominates or not
Triggers a war of seniority in the state
Baffling the community that surrounds

He tosses me in and out of the arena, time and again
Though fear grips the hand that meddles the straight path
I walk and search for a chair in the game
Musical chairs but no whistle in sight

Accessibility to the privileges of rank and role
Is debarred so that you are hassled
Like a bird whose wings are clipped
How you function is immaterial to me

The state's vehicle is ripped from me, the personal punctured
Will a state's mechanic restore the damage?
Certainly not, you will be screwed for the help extended
But I must perform,oblivious to change

Consequences galore, and the furore created
Friends turn foes, the future turns hazy
Work is worship to one, an impediment to some
Shadows and overshadowing create combat

An experience of a quarter century, what a run
Overflowing with medallions accrued
In exchange a single request to the state dishonoured
The beacon light bearers gang up to destruct

No light beamed through the prison's tunnels
To be or not to be, the pendulum oscillated
The fire from the family, showed me light
Like a phoenix, I emerged yet again