By Badri Raina
Naipaul, he of woman born—
A circumstance most uncouth--
Had he a choice he would have come
From a white man’s mealy mouth.
Least he could he does, he does,
Do dirt on “feminine tosh”;
Shama Biswas, what child you bore,
Ghosh, ghosh, and ghosh!
Hardy never a Nobel got,
Nor Fyodor Dostoevsky;
They did not dash this “feminine tosh”
With stupid sufficiency.
How lucky he that Austen be
Not among us now, alas;
What mince she might have made of him
In a novel of purest class.
January 1, 2012
