Karl Marx’s Ghost

Karl Marx’s ghost wailed at the feet of Kashi Vishwanatha Mahadev,

‘Has the time not yet come to take birth in Kashi and study the Vedas?

I’ve been thirstily wandering for years now’ it pleaded.

Shiva just said, ‘You’ll have to rattle more’.

‘Why take on me alone? You’ve graciously liberated other ghosts’ asked Marx.

‘You are a notorious ghost. There are others of your kind. Do you want names?’ asked Shiva.

‘No, I’ve had enough of my own affairs. See, how hard I rattled as skeletons piled up in Russia. Then Gorbochev woke up and prevented a messy end. He even prepared a comfortable tomb for himself. He was surely wiser than poor Czar.

I tried the same in China. Then Deng came and changed the name of yellow to red and buried red. Cuba doesn’t bother me. Cubans are just humouring their beloved Fidel in his old age. Vietnamese too have their own little Dengs. The Koreans will take care of themselves. But these Bengalees, oh!…. Marx’s ghost paused as it gathered breath for strength, ‘these Bengalis have neither the fierceness of the Russians, all their snapping are at the deliberate red herrings placed in their path by the bloodiest shark into whose mouth they are entering, nor do they have the wisdom of the Chinese, their intellects busy with slicing up the entrails of these mutilated herrings. I’m up against it. Thy limitless grace is my only shelter’ prayed Marx’s ghost.

Shiva of terrible deeds but of deep compassion, just smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry, keep rattling’.

He closed his eyes as Marx’s ghost prepared itself for another mighty rattle.

Swami Sampurnananda, Genre 273, No. 45, Lalgarh Kuthia, 21 Feb. 2004, 9. 15 p.m.