A village nestled in a ring of hills

And waters came hurrying in a stream,—

It was so until academic mills

Got busy grinding scripts, ream after ream.

 

Oh these stupid credulous folk! don’t know

Methods of editing texts, how to read

Phrases that are old, blurry, that but show

The author his own promptings failed to heed.

 

We’re the authentic lot from Yale-Harvard

And the archival sciences, they maintain,

Cannot be disputed be they for the bard

Or for chaps who in the world see no gain.

 

By now disappeared the small place, the brook,

And the demons of thought its possession took.

 

 

RY Deshpande

20 April 2009