If I were a minister,

I would be signing papers and registers.

No difficulty to face,

And with all the time to waste —

Giving interviews on TV,

Sometime on Sony, sometimes on DD,

Reading the newspaper

And looking for my name

In various scandals and scams,

Taking bribes and giving licenses

For illegal purposes,

Celebrating weekends

Throughout the week

Instead of working for the poor and the weak.

I would pray to God.

Never make me a minister.

Her name meant a dream, a fantasy,

Something difficult to attain.

She endured the strong opposition

To attain her aim.

For her, the whole universe was her native land;

She wanted to travel beyond the blue yonder

And come back and land.

She wanted to touch the stars and make her nation proud

But ah! The irony of fate;

All these dreams dissipated like a cloud.

Her space endeavour could have been fabulous

But she herself became one of the seven new stars over Texas.

This was the end of another great legend

Who will serve as my model till the end.

Wishing all a great journey, she left;

India needs stars like Dr. Chawla,

I want to be the next!

As it is important for you to listen to your father’s views,

It is equally important to read the news.

To know news, newspapers are our best companions.

They tell everything about foreigners and Indians.

News should be read without any fail,

If thers’s bad news our faces turn pale.

For news, the best newspaper is The Tribune,

It has every news and every tune.

Reading news is not a bad hobby,

We get information even about filmstars like Sunil and Bobby.

This feature was published on January 10, 2004