They build their castles on bones,
an empire of ashes fueled by greed,
hands greased with crony coal dust,
sprawling across the belly of a land
once rich with breath, now choked
by factories exhaling black smoke.
They call it progress, this firestorm—
set low-grade coal ablaze,
trade heat for power, power for profit,
while we burn in the furnace of their lies.
They turn villages into furnaces
and the people into kindling,
for the sake of their deals,
for the west that whispers in their ears,
whispering promises of armament gold.
Tin soldiers march, propped up by the weight
of western tongues,
tinpot dictators in tailored suits,
turning a country into a cockpit,
South Asia the new war room,
while the middle class crumbles like forgotten clay
beneath the hands of corporate titans.
Oh, the middle class—
shrunken down to shadows,
their dreams sold off to FMCG vendors,
who count their fading numbers
as if they were grains of sand
slipping through a broken hourglass.
The poor tremble at the edge of oblivion,
the poverty line stretching wide
as the road beneath them cracks,
paved with lies,
built on debts too deep to see.
Automobile giants now roll in silence,
factories slowing as IT dies
and the ghost of employment fades into smoke.
But look! Look at the roads,
the crumbling highways built in haste,
their hollow bones snapping
beneath the weight of corruption.
Still, the propaganda machine spins,
polishing the rust with gold-leaf promises.
Print media praises false gods;
social media sings hymns to their progress.
Those who speak out, who dare whisper dissent,
find bars slammed shut,
their voices locked in cages without trial.
And there, in the heart of the machine,
their sons sit on gilded thrones,
running the empire’s games,
holding the reins of BCCI, ICC,
while they spit "dynasty!" at the past,
forgetting their bloodlines bleed the same.
Demonetization turned currency to dust,
GST a bullet to the nation's chest.
Every plan misfired,
but they keep reloading,
shooting at the air,
hitting nothing but themselves,
while we, the people, fall—
fall beneath the weight of their lies.
And the land? Oh, the land they steal—
given away for the price of silence.
Free land for coal that scalds the earth,
the local air thickens with heat,
and the summers rise like hell’s breath.
The people sweat, they burn,
while power flows away,
exported to the highest bidder
in a neighboring land
who pays for our suffering
with their silence.
Roads fall apart, tracks crack open,
and still, they sing of breakneck speed,
of infrastructure rising like a new dawn.
But it is a false sun, a dying star,
and we are all burning in its light.
This is the empire of ashes,
built on our backs,
and they—
they will feast on our bones.
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