“Image”

How many webs we weave
to create our image—
hiding who we really are,
we create a new aura instead.

We become two-faced snakes,
appearing one way outside
and another within.
Wearing false coverings,
we keep fooling others.

With cultured words on our lips,
we keep devising new schemes;
saying “yes, yes” on the surface,
while cutting the roots beneath.

However dark the heart may be,
the white-clad respectable people
want everything to appear pleasant.

To preserve our image,
how much we conceal,
how carefully we decorate the facade,
and keep wearing a false identity.

We even devise ways
to tarnish the image of others;
searching for their secrets,
we expose their faults
and put them in the media.

Democracy, too, has become
a kind of mob rule—
whatever the greater number says
is accepted as right,
and then truth is left
to bang its head against the wall.

Mass communication has become
a medium for creating and destroying images—
for making someone famous quickly
and for defaming them just as fast.

To improve our own image,
we shake out every corner of our own sheet;
to destroy others,
we do not hesitate
to throw mud at them.

—Vidya