A poignant poem, by Abu, that shows very little changes for those in the margins, exclusively for Different Truths

November sunset
A few peasants still cutting paddy
In their own land or hired or mortgaged I don’t know,
A thick column of smoke from a distant kiln
Lazily swallowing the treetops of the horizon,
God’s chosen half-naked children from
An abandoned roof merrily waving hands
To a passing special train,
Their fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers
Had also waved hands,
And they have died and, buried
Under bamboo planks at some bamboo shades,
And they have only left century’s legacy,  
Now their children and children of the children
Are waiting for same beaten track,  
Waving hands to passing special trains
In tattered clothes from empty roofs
Or from fields overused with poisons
In form of high yielding fertilisers and pesticides,
Produced and sold in million small bazaars
Of our spicy land maintaining international norms,
And the children will meet the end their fathers met,
A bamboo plank at an unknown bamboo grove.
Mist in the air,
Dreams just yards away,
And the half-naked children from an abandoned roof
Are still waving hands to the passing special train.

Visual by Different Truths

Abu Siddik

Abu Siddik teaches at Plassey College, Nadia, West Bengal, India. He loves to write poem, short story and article on the struggle and resilience of the Indian marginalised communities, the underdogs, the outcasts. He has 12 books.

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