The Story of Values

[Chorus – all voices]
Where are the values now?
Who sold them, who bought them?
We climbed the stair, we climbed the stair—
and never looked back down.
 
Verse 1
In the prison of despair,
men barter eye for eye,
blow for blow—
and the leaders pound
on the door of the Supreme Court
like it’s the drum of victory.
 
On the street,
water drips on time—
never late, never early.
The bee has flown away
with the life-insurance payout.
The comrade climbs the dais—
marches with the kirtan singers.
 
[Chorus]
Where are the values now?
Who sold them, who bought them?
We climbed the stair, we climbed the stair—
and never looked back down.
 
Verse 2
On the footpath—
a beggar woman’s breast
under the red-bordered sari.
The broker’s hand
slides a folded slip.
Rabindranath smiles from a glass case—
no dust will touch him now.
 
Parties, parties, parties—
bicker under the banyan.
Justice, ethics, art
tucked into a biscuit packet.
An industrialist grins in the crowd.
Behind glass,
employment figures dance.
 
[Chorus – louder]
Where are the values now?
Who sold them, who bought them?
We climbed the stair, we climbed the stair—
and never looked back down.
 
Verse 3
Whose house did the thief enter?
The modern wife
of the neighbourhood strongman
can sing hymns and read the news.
The festival’s smell still lingers—
finery, devotion,
Mahishasura’s offerings laid out
like wedding sweets.
 
The world does not stop—
it grinds,
steady under blows.
Tongues wag with slander,
passbooks clutched like charms.
Here, the Pandavas are taught
as heritage—
alongside India’s store of wisdom,
and its new data servers.
 
[Chorus – mocking]
Where are the values now?
Who sold them, who bought them?
We climbed the stair, we climbed the stair—
and never looked back down.
 
Verse 4
The elder shouts louder
as his hair turns white:
“What’s left of values here?”
We climbed the stair,
quick, without looking back,
leaving behind the graduates,
the clerks,
the labourer with the sack of grain.
 
Between them—
the brokers:
true middle-class gentry,
their shelves packed
with justice and ethics
bound in leather.
 
From the top step,
we looked down—
and the story was still there:
numb,
values traded in the market.
 
[Final Chorus – all voices in unison]
Where are the values now?
Who sold them, who bought them?
We climbed the stair, we climbed the stair—
and never looked back down.