An Ode to Rajiv Gandhi

Below is a message written by a famous indian scientist to the prime minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi in 1986. he was offered a good position in India, but infact beign a recomendatnt of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, got bitter experience with the administration of india, and got settled in germany. dr Shukla says:


An Ode to Rajiv Gandhi

I am a German Ph.D.
Returned home voluntarily,
On hearing that winds have changed,
Scientists must no longer be
Sacrificed, at the altar of bureaucracy.
That now Indians sail the high seas.
I am besides good at oceanography.
So I thought let me go home
And I reached D.O.D.
"Go on cruise my boy", enraptured
spoke the secretary.
"Yes Sir," gladder could I never be.
Atlst the ship of my dream of oceanography,
Crashed on the rocks of senior scientists apathy.
Criticism! Initiative!! responsibility!!!
"How dare you? Be Indian, let
German technique be
bygone." threatned the Secretary's
henchmen,
So Antartica remained for me,
A mere fantasy,
For, I could never be,
A spineles spectator of hypocrisy,
Of high sounding scientific odyssey,
Going on at the National Institute of
Oceanography.
I quit, but none listned to me,
Not the Minister, not the Prime
minister's secretariate
Not even the scientist Secretary,
Ten they want sheep, not creativity.
New winds aer blowing, but
The old stink reigns!
Scientists may come, sacientists may go,
Good ones would ever be,
Damned starved and forced to flee,
To America or may be Germany
Listen O young Rajiv!
Are not your ears blocked
By your callous bureaucracy?
India can now jump in 21st century,
Yet still a half-baked country,
Where scientists are doomed
Into spinning halfbaked science,
At any rate missing the best in science.
S.K. Shukla
Delhi
Department of Ocean Development