It began
When someone started
Stealing laughter.
Quietly.
From WhatsApp groups,
Chai tapris,
Even Kapil Sharma reruns.
Jokes turned stale.
Faces forgot
How to crinkle.
Stand-up comics
Sat down in
Self-censure.
One man,
Near Ghaziabad,
Coughed so powerfully
It echoed in Parliament.
He was made Minister
of Health & Mucus.
News anchors began
Clearing throats
Instead of facts.
Debates sounded
Like TB wards.
Slogans turned to
Luxurious wheezes.
“Freedom of Speech?”
No, no.
Freedom to Cough.
That's a thing now.
Coughers rose like poets.
Dry cough. Wet cough.
Nationalist phlegm.
Contestants lined up
Outside Ayush Ministry
for the Coughing Championship.
First prize:
A plastic lung that's
Fluent and
Lifetime supply
Of Vicks.
Coughing replaced clapping.
Replaced slogans.
Replaced silence.
One cough, one vote.
Two coughs, you're an influencer.
Three coughs?
Too much freedom--
Sedition, probably.
But soon,
Coughs began to disappear.
Someone—maybe from
"Anti-national quarters"—
Started stealing them too.
Sucked them out
With nano-devices
and Section 144 notices.
That’s when it happened.
A man in Bareilly,
Perhaps god’s chosen one,
Farted during
An Aadhaar update.
The Earth paused.
And thus, began
The Age of Flatulence.
Panel discussions now began
With gaseous bursts.
National anthems
were remixed
With strategic toots.
Schoolchildren were taught
to respect loud farts
But fear the silent ones.
The PM called them
“Symbols of Organic Dissent.”
One MP spoke out:
“This is ridiculous!”
He was arrested.
His last recorded sound
was…
a suspicious squeak.
Soon,
Corporates joined in.
Patanjali launched
"Desi Gobar Gas™"
for the spiritually aligned.
Baba Ramdev
Held a press conference
With no words—
Just synchronized fart yoga.
But art suffered.
Poets were replaced
by stomachs.
Cinema replaced
with whoopee cushions.
The Constitution, now
a scratch-and-sniff.
Still, the people adjusted.
They always do.
They coughed when allowed,
Farted when blessed.
And in between,
They held their breath—
For what used to be
called Freedom.
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