All history’s entangled in my beard

I’ve taught in this Department for donkey’s years,

The place is awful, horrible, I can’t find the word.

I have used the same text to teach Macbeth these four decades.

The fact that I didn’t need to change it,

Says so much about things here. There’s not one scholar,

One critic that the department has produced. I go to America,

To England, to Africa, or what have you, every six months,

Confident that not an inch of moss will have been disturbed here on my return.

I teach English to students who consider it Greek.

I waste my time. My books have been published from America,

And from every known press in India. Am counted among the top ten Indian poets.

Don’t have illusions yaar, you’ve come to work in this Department, it will suck you dry.

Think of my long white beard, have respect for it.

The history of Indian English poetry is entangled in it.

This Department is totally absent here.

Leave this place and settle elsewhere while you are young.

Or, you’ll get stuck here like me, till everything’s undone.

Don’t look surprised. Why did I not leave it?

I was probably too timid to settle elsewhere.

And I did try once, but that place was tough.

Don’t look worried, you are young and strong.

Escape before you grow a white beard like mine,

And sit to curse all you see; both earthly and divine.