Hello my friends, my readers! This time, my thoughts go towards the poem I was editing on poverty( ref to last post). In the new city, I am astonished to see that so much of poverty still remains in our country! We brag about Formula 1 race tracks and multi -specialty hospitals and technology parks coming up, but what about poverty? Why is that swept under the carpet? I wrote the poem watching an impoverished girl on the street, begging and playing around so happily between running cars and speeding bikes! Similarly, now, many years later, I noticed there has been an outbreak of deadly viruses here and it is  due to the stagnant waters after floods and rain, bad hygiene, and poverty.

 Questions: Why can’t the government spray insecticides and provide a better standard of living? Are the poor so used to not doing work that they WANT to live this way at minimum cost? We have families living in our ‘out houses’, with crying children, and mothers working as helpers in our homes and their men- staying in the house-doing NOTHING ! Some don’t even send their children to school. The elder child stays at home to look after the babies. Why so many babies you ask? Well ,the women may have given birth to two daughters and hence wished a son for carrying the family name forward, or they are too poor to get operated, or they think ‘as many hands-as much money’.  

 And what will happen with the petrol prices going up- EVERYONE will be affected! It may soon be cheaper to eat out in a restaurant than at home! ……..And even drinking coffee will be a luxury!!!! So quickly…..grab yourself a hot strong mocha and read the poem below! Do let me know what you think!

At the Traffic Light

As the traffic light turned red, in all the din,

Sat a tiny girl,

With a bare torso,

a sweet smile, milk drop eyes,

and a dark chocolate skin,

With knees to her chin, and

two plastic cups in hand,

All her dreams and thoughts within.

Some saw her through their AC windows,

Some through their helmets and glares,

The horns blared, the traffic snarled

The petrol polluted the air.

The road was her school, her home, her bed hard,

With two plastic cups in hand, she played in her backyard,

One cup on the other, she created her rescue tower,

She looked through the plastic and her dream became sour,

One cup her tower come tumbling down,

In that instant gravity was learned and then she frowned,

She took the fallen cup and hit it with all her might,

She hit, it crackled, she hit it, with her tiny fist tight.

The tower now broken, yet one cup in hand,

She looked at it excitedly and filled it fully with sand,

Thoughts of a sweet drink, yet sand in her hand.

The cup filled with dirt, a cup full of positivity,

The traffic light turned green,

Her thirst was quenched, as she tipped the sand out,

she came back to reality.