Friday, October 1, 2010

OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTURE

Have you seen,
Chothis and Chiruthas
on the outskirts of life
skinny and dusky
faces pale, anaemic
like fading flowers
queueing up
at various junctions of life.
In the serpentine queues
before Govt hospitals
before public distribution outlets
before govt offices
where red-ribboned
files are piled-up
in haphazard manner.
Before the Great Master
at the work-sites in the
evenings
after a day of slugging
it out
in fields, plantations,
places of loading and unloading
under the blazing sun
coughing out sputam and phlegm
with traces of 'little red flowers'
to collect their hard-earned coolies
only a pittance
with bowed heads, hands
cupped with slavish humility, gratitude
also infront of
long processions
chanting slogans aloud
to the top of their voices
often the slogans
getting choked intermittently
often gasping for breath.
Dreams they keep though
hopes they cherish
ambitions they do have
like other humanbeings
but the cupped hands
often left empty.
Dreams,
hopes,
ambitions,
not anyone's monopoly.

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