For once, the cool and calm Barack Hussein Obama tripped over his words as he took the path of office as the 44th President of the United States. Congratulations Mr. President, you take office at a momentous time, an enormous burden on your slim shoulders.

The hopes and dreams of not just 300 million Americans but the entire world, beseiged by terrorism and beset by economic failure, rest on this humble but confident man, who genuinely believes he can bring us all together.

Such are the expectations from the new President that, on the eve of his inauguration, a poem from Yuddha Kanda, the Ramayana’s book of war, describing Rama’s reign seems appropriate-

And tis told by ancient sages, during Rama’s happy reign,
Death untimely, dire diseases came not to his subject men,

Widows wept not in their sorrow for their lords untimely lost,
Mothers wailed not in their anguish for their babes by YAMA crost,

Robbers, cheats, and gay deceivers tempted not with lying word,
Neighbour loved his righteous neighbour and the people loved their lord!

Trees their ample produce yielded as returning seasons went,
And the earth in grateful gladness never failing harvest lent,

Rains descended in their season, never came the blighting gale,
Rich in crop and rich in pasture was each soft and smiling vale,

Loom and anvil gave their produce and the tilled and fertile soil,
And the nation lived rejoicing in their old ancestral.

Good luck Mr. President, we are with you.