Why we’ll never be short of gas

O what’s the matter, Shanta mine
So pale and vainly loitering?

The veg has withered in your fridge,

And no cookers hiss.
I see your worried, wrinkled brow,
With anguish moist coz dinner’s due;
And from your eye a salty tear
Is fast falling too.

I met a mantri, replied the lass,

On shortages he heaped his scorn 

He said I’d get my precious gas, 

So why I should be woe begone.

I got on to my trusty bike,
I scoured the city all day long;
And tho’ depots were shuttered tight,

I knew sarkar is nevver wrong?

I purchased aloo for a dum, 

And atta for some Puri too.

Mantri gazed at my loot with love,
And  kept his word. Well, sort-of true.

He showed me herds of bulls and cows, 

And said, ‘It’s not just their precious poo 

That’ll make much needed gobar gas.

Their anaerobic digestion spews 

The bio genre too. 

Municipal inefficiency do not mock, 

Garbage and sewers push up our stock.

We’ll draw methane from marsh as well

Till towers don’t soar where wetlands dwell. 

But, Ma’am, where we truly have the edge, 

Is that this gas is natural, renewable, 

And even Pure Veg! 

Forget bombed Iran, the sheikhdoms too.
Hit Dubai, death-pale tho’ they may be all.
It matters not a bit to us  

If EU, UK don’t play ball. 

You see this is Bharat, dear, 

There’s no cause for worry here.
As long we have gobar, garbage, gasbags galore,  

Care not if LPG’s gone from shops,
And no butane sings.’

                                ***

Alec Smart said,  “It’s Iran’s joyous ‘Navruz’ today, but Spring is nowhere near.”

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