I remember my school blackboard and the words written in white standing bold and righteous
CHANGE IS THE LAW OF NATURE
and then I see the world around me.
Stagnant in its misery, unjust in its approach
VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE
we certainly do love diversity for the sake of it but we prefer to flock together with our own kind at the end of the day.
well, but we are all the same people
With our broad minds and secular beliefs
Combined with communal riots and banned beef
We all salute the same flag, it's just that we salute our own colours.
We're all the same people, you know
So what if our skins a different colour show
It doesn't matter to me
Well, unless it is not creamy white
you see, that's the signifier of our might
If there's one thing we're doing right,
It has got to be family
We still live together happily
A father, a mother, a son and another son
Throw in a few pesky aunts and a handful of cousins
but don't you dare tell us that there can be a family of only daddies
oh, did you ask about gay rights?
I am sorry I couldn't hear you over all that homophobia and transphobia in the air
You see, there's a lot of fag- i mean, fog in the streets
You won't believe this, we don't care with whom you share your sheets
Well, unless it's with a member of the same sex or member of a different sect
We are all creative people, you know
We encourage art, architecture, comedy
you can make all the jokes you want about everything and anything
Well, of course, except anything to do with religion, politics, race, caste, community, gender and anything else we might have forgotten
Otherwise, we're quite the 'ideal' audience
Don't you worry about the people you'll meet around here
we have diversity and we preserve it well
you'll see swaggers from city states
and rural dwellers with simple fates
You'll see the obnoxious north and elegant south
You'll see the rowdy west and....well, no one really knows what goes on in the east
We're all the same people, obviously
But we all know what the heirarchy states
There's a section of society that everyone hates
Society divided into sections within sections
Sections branch out in fragments and figments
Larger the section, more the power
smaller the section, a few reserved seats
And we still sing of the country's glorious feats
Well, enough with stereotypes, already.
I am an educated young woman and this is blasphemy
For we all live in a facade of similarity
we all know we are not the same people
Nor can we ever be
Nor do we ever want to be
It's time we stop looking for similarities in our skins,
familiarity in our food,
resemblance in our ranks,
affinity in our attitudes,
Maybe we will never find it.
What we can do is recognize, acknowledge and appreciate our differences.
And maybe then we can finally be on the same page.