The sweat of other people’s brows

My dear Billy, I often wonder why on earth do we have to go to Somalia and elsewhere in order to get a supply of pirates for our judges when our own streets are teeming with hundreds of these despicable miscreants. This abominably tolerated situation has prompted a handful of our local artists to try to take the law in their own hands recently, with dire consequences for themselves. These artists could no longer afford to play the role of cuckolds while others were enjoying the fruits of their labour lost. “Music is the art of the prophets, the only art that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us,” said 16th century German religious reformer, Martin Luther. Had it not been for the brave pirates, many of us, poor mortals, would never have had access to this great gift of God. And so, like Satan who bestows mirages and doubtful gains upon his followers, his children continue to flood the market with pirated CDs, VCDs, DVDs. And the people, who are used to benefiting from these satanic gifts, stimulate, encourage and abet these highway brigands in their shameful activities by purchasing their ill-gotten wares. Music Day is celebrated once every year, but it’s Pirate’s Day every day of the year. An estimated 350,000 pirated CDs had been seized by the ADSU in the past from the shops and pavements. But such exercises are no longer in practice. However, in the days when such operations were in mode, pirates were made of sterner stuff, as you would say, my dear Billy. Undaunted, unabated, unabashed, they continued valiantly as if nothing had happened. It seemed that no power on earth or in heaven could deter them from pursuing their path of dishonesty, doom and damnation. Maybe this is what led the authorities to give up. If you can’t beat them it’s always wise to join them, isn’t it? It’s quite like the fiends of Hindu mythology – chop off the ugly head of the demon, and ten will immediately grow in its place. As soon as ADSU walks away with a bumper catch, the stores and pavements are replenished with a fresh supply of pirated CDs and the rest. When God banished Mr. and Mrs. Adam from Eden, He had cursed them to “earn thy bread to the sweat of thy brow.” The pirates have deviated God’s will and bidding: they are earning their bread to the sweat of other people’s brows. Clever, isn’t it? And dishonest, mean, despicable. The music business here and elsewhere is a cruel, shallow gutter, a shameful hallway where thieves and pirating pimps and eunuchs operate freely, while artists impassively lie down and watch themselves getting raped by callous brutes. I have a great urge to twist Lord Byron’s verse and propose the following version for the pirates’ common epitaph: “Posterity will never get to contemplate/ A viler grave than this:/ Here lie the shameful bones of a CD pirate/Stop, traveller, and piss.” In my play, “Mahabharat -The Eternal Conflcit,” Lord Krishna throws a curse on one of the protagonists who has committed infanticide: “I curse you with a thousand plagues for this infanticide. Your body will be disfigured and your festering skin will smell like a diseased dog. You will pray for death but it will turn its back on you, and you will continue to live with wounds fresh on your body and bleeding. You will roam in dark forests for ages. You will live with bandages sticking to cancerous wounds, your body covered with pus, spittle and phlegm.” I am greatly tempted to extend Krishna’s curse to all CD, VCD and DVD pirates and their consorts. The Mahabharat character had killed only one unborn baby to earn Krishna’s wrath. Think of the manifold crimes committed by sellers of pirated CDs, DVDs etc. They kill not only music, but musicians and their families with one stone. But maybe you will think that I am too hard on them, my dear Billy, because they are only applying the law of demand and supply. Piracy combines two of the nation’s greatest evils: people who have absolutely no scruple about putting their dirty finger down singers’ throats, and those who encourage and abet them to commit the sin. And why should pirates be such felons, my dear Billy? They would be no wolves if Mauritians were no spineless sheep. If people simply stopped buying pirated CDs, VCDs and DVDs, the pirates would soon be out of criminal business. As it is, both buyers and sellers are criminals and equally guilty. They join forces to kill art and artists. They murder creativity. They assassinate talent. But artists will never die. Governments have tried to stifle them; authors have been sent to prison and concentration camps or exiled and fatwaed; books have been banned; museums have been pillaged; musicians have been silenced. Yet artistic creation keeps marching on. Pirates will have to face the music one of these days, my dear Billy. Don’t you think? Pirates, when at last they die, will shrivel in hell’s bakery. Amen!