Smart City for Smart Men

Smart cities are for smart men
Who drool not on other’s pain;
Sequestered from human face,
They work but digital gain.

They will not look you in the eye,
But go past like hurricane;
While Bharat lags in bullock cart,
They take the bullet train.

They will pack their oxygen
In latest plastic lung;
Their water will come from hidden
Sack beneath synthetic tongue.

Smart will be our destiny,
Smart our indifference
To those who will not be smart
With no genius for the main chance.


A Fulbright Scholar and PhD from Madison, Wisconsin, Badri Raina taught English literature at Delhi University for four decades. He has several collections of poems, essays and translations to his credit besides "Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth"